River City
Living here in the Pacific Northwest with all it's rain and mountain snow brings abundant rivers full of fish and life giving waters that make the western half of the states of Washington and Oregon green and lush.
The eastern halves, east of the Cascade Range, is quite dry even with extensive irrigation from the Columbia River watershed and the eastern slopes of said range.
We've had a good snowpack this year, in some areas well over 100%, and it looks like it's going to be a great summer for watersports and fishing.
But we've got new visitors that are complicating things, sealions and seals.
They have discovered in the last decade or so an abundance of salmon gathering at Bonneville Dam and Willamette Falls and are feasting on them, decimating their numbers by up to half the annual runs.
This is a relatively new phenomena as the sea lions and California seals are swimming 100 miles up the river to feast and are creating some havoc on beaches and estuaries all along their journey upriver.
Their numbers are steadily growing every year, and since they are protected by federal law, a conundrum is quickly developing. Eventually, the predators of seals, sharks, will follow.
I read a while back about Nurse Sharks being found all the way up the Mississippi River in the Chicago waters feeding on jumping carp, which seemed like a good solution, aside from the obvious hazard to swimmers sharing those rivers. But I don't know enough about the rivers there as being popular swimming venues anyway.
Here, everyone swims in the rivers from mid spring to mid fall. So much so that we have experienced another increasing influx of visitors, from out of state, vacationers and newbies migrating from various states, largely Californians and Texans, as evidenced by license plates from those states prevalent on our highways and byways.
I'm not against this trend, although they bring big city "culture" with them, especially graffiti, which was never seen here when I myself migrated here from the high desert of Palmdale/Lancaster California in the mid 90s.
A more saddening trend is their lack of awareness of the dangers of swimming and boating in our rivers. Just last month a vacationing young man put his kayak in the Willamette River just up stream of the Falls, which he apparently was unaware of, and was caught in the current and went over the falls and drowned. It was bad enough that he put in at 10 o'clock at night, but with NO life jacket made for a catastrophe that could have made it survivable.
For 3 weeks they searched for his body. The search turned up 8 other bodies in the river until finally, yesterday they found his.
A sad ending to a family on vacation.
The importance of wearing a lifejacket cannot be more evident with this unfortunate tragedy. And knowing the natural hazards of the area.
We don't want another reason to draw sharks upriver either.
Tread is open.
Comments
Going to make a quick run
down to the river to unleash another squirrel I've trapped in my garden, number 27.
Be right back.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Woke up "not dead"
again this morning. Still gobsmacked.
I see that VZ has decided to continue droning Moscow every night, in the buildup to their May 9 Victory Day parade.
https://archive.ph/fE9U4
Keep in mind that he is undoubtedly doing this because our government is telling him that they will somehow protect him, and encouraging him to do it.
In short, we own this. It will end in tears.
I was on LinkedIn earlier, looking to see if there are any jobs for pushing-70 engineers who steadfastly and non-negotiably refuse to have anything to do with AI. There aren't. Every other article in my engineering-heavy feed is about the wonders of AI in code generation, circuit design, and management of command and control systems. And then, about every 30 articles, there's one about how the more advanced AI systems become, they more they "hallucinate", and produce spurious junk as output.
As I've said, I used to think that the final nuclear exchange would be started by human error or mechanical/electrical failure, not by a political decision- or even the act of a madman. I now believe that it will be because of some AI somewhere hallucinating an existential threat that has been put in action.
I think I've looked at LinkedIn for the last time. I'm not going to get a new job by using it, anyway: I'm not artificial enough.
On edit: this is fun. And in a production environment... https://sf.gazetteer.co/college-students-job-interview-goes-tiktok-viral...
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Yeah
Who would try to
shitrain on a parade celebrating the defeat of Nazis in WW2 but Nazis?Thanks for the post, and you could have just left your earlier one up. I would have responded to it when I got back.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Nah- I didn't want
to step on anyone's toes. These thoughts are only worth a comment, not a full thread.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Sounds grim. Eat two diodes and call me in the morning.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Roger that!
I'll follow them up with a nice bowl of electron soup. Nerd penicillin! Always makes me feel better.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
I "enrolled" on LinkedIn
way back when it began just for fun.
I provided a sparse bio that read "Ruler of the World, Master of the Known Universe, Supreme Head of Household".
I guess there's not much demand for those kind of qualifications as I've received no offers, yet.
Maybe it hasn't reached the Vogons yet?
Have a great day, USF.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Good morning e1. I think a possible solution to the
pinniped problem is to erect barriers designed to exclude most pinnipeds while letting most Salmon through, it is simply a question of relative body diameters. Place at various downstream locations et voila. Dunno what to do about the other pests.
There are 2 types of humans who kayak "wild rivers", those on professional guided tours and thrill seekers. There is a fine line between adrenaline junkie thrill seekers and those with suicidal tendencies, but I'm not sure that anybody has figured out what it is. One possibility is the difference between doing something for its own inherent merits despite there being risks involved versus doing something solely and precisely in order to partake of the risks without any other merit or purpose.
I've been on both sides of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. My first impression of the okanagagon and its northward extension in to B.C. was that it reminded my of San Diego's 'East County' as to flora and fauna, climate and the like. More like Lancaster than the PNW.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
The problem with barriers
is the heavy river traffic of deep draft shipping that ply these waters. Hell, the US and Canadian Navies are due to power up river next month for the annual Fleet Week celebrations during the Rose Festival events, bringing some very large warships to the Portland waterfront.
As far as the other migrants and visitors are concerned, the increasing "Californication" of the PNW may discourage them leaving where they are now.
But it's impossible to hide the incredible beauty of the surrounding forests and fauna and mountains.
I have never seen so many designated roadless Wilderness Refuges as here in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
They are everywhere. And many people get lost in them all the time. I don't know which takes more lives, the rivers or the back country. Many are lost every year on Mt. Hood, so much so the locals are referring to the poor victims as "another sacrifice to the Volcano Gods".
We have our share of thrill seeking kayakers who love the challenge of whitewater. Most are knowledgeable of the inherent hazards of fast moving waters strewn with rocks and boulders.
But the young man put in on the very slow moving Willamette that was wide and placid water. I would guess a late night paddle in the moonlight prompted him to let his guard down, and not knowing what was just down river.
And you are right about the eastern side of the PNW, very much like the high desert of the Mojave and low desert of the Sonora.
Although, a very large tract of land in south eastern Oregon is denoted as the Oregon Outback and does indeed resemble the Australian namesake.
Thanks for joining the conversation. Have a great day.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Good morning, e1!
Dying seals and sea lions on the Ca. coast are in the news for being sick, having seizures, and attacking swimmers.
We are having some scary storms coming this afternoon and lasting through Thursday. Tornado watch, tennis ball sized hail, flash floods, and so on. At least I do not have to drive to another jurisdiction for court this afternoon. I doubt if my umbrella will be of much use as hail protection. Gotta walk a block each way between office and courthouse. Of course, it is the exact time the t-storm is expected.
I am glad you can re-home Petey, and i hope he meets us with his 26 pals. Great job trapping!
Thanks for the OT, friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Yeah, I too have been reading about
the dying sea lions down south. I have to wonder if this is connected to the upsurge of migrants here. The ones they trap here for relocation appear quite healthy, and are certainly fat with fish. Well-fed they are.
Have also been reading about the severe storms plaguing your environs. Don't know which is scarier, the twisters, the giant rocks falling from the sky, or the flash floods. Good luck and stay safe.
While I type this out, another Rocky falls into my trap, so off I go again to the river. This makes #27.
Be right back.
Have a great day.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Ok, I'm back
As the Terminator/Relocator would say.
Did I miss anything? LOL
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
The Zionists and its supporters have no shame.
One single solitary woman
that stands up to multiple Israel Firsters and courageously confronts them.
That should be the "Profiles in Courage" award winner instead of that gargantuan wimp Pence.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
The actual impact of Trump's tariffs won't be felt until the
preemptive stockpiling of goods runs out.
https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/us-trade-deficit-swells-to-...
Oh My! What could possibly go wrong between 2 nuclear
equipped countries?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/06/asia/india-pakistan-kashmir-conflict-hnk-...
Edited to add:
The fact that
the Indians didn't target any military sites will make it difficult to retaliate. What would the Pakistani target? Are there known terrorist sites in India? Or Kashmir?
Hopefully this ends here in restraint.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.