Breach or Die: It’s Time to Free the Lower Snake River and Save Idaho’s Wild Salmon

On a hillside above the Salmon River, Kyle Smith, his setter, and I stood there and panted. Still catching our breath from the climb, we looked down to see a fish break the water’s surface. The big Chinook rolled in a deep pool, a fine place to rest during her long trip home from the Pacific. Swimming more than 500 miles up the Columbia and Snake Rivers before taking a left up the Salmon, this fish dodged predators, avoided gillnets, and fought through walls of concrete to carry the next generation upstream.