Find Stronghold: One Mans Quest To Save The Worlds Wild Salmon Generated By Tucker Malarkey Accessible In Publication

don't know whether this book is being mismarketed or if I just made it up in my head that it would be as informative as Paul Greenburg's Four Fish, but Stronghold was too much a biography about one man I didn't care about the author's cousin, Guido Rahr, and too little about salmon.


Guido Rahr has the kind of personality we often find compellingan essentially selfish, selfisolated white man with an obsessive interest that must take precedence over everything else, including loving his children or supporting his wife.
I really just didn't care about the details of Guido's personal life or personality, all of which left a bad taste in my mouth.
I wanted to learn more about salmon, but beyond a quick crash course in the beginning, little scientific information is conveyed about them.


Stronghold also makes weird assumptions, like that I, the average reader, would find fishing interesting even without it being properly explained.
You can make an argument for almost anything being compelling, but in the case of fishing which takes up great bulks of the book, no argument was made.
There was no attempt to make it interesting, The author mentioned briefly that Guido is the rare hunterenvironmentalist, but doesn't explain why, I know so much stuff about this person I don't care about, but one of the things that seems most important wasn't explained at all.
Guido probably has indepth thoughts about the ethics of fishing, but I don't know them,

This book holds good information about the enormous complexity involved in protecting nature on an international level, but it is clouded with its focus on Guido Rahr.
The book could be shorter, more impactful, and more informative if it focused on the fish and not the man, A biography of Guido Rahr and his efforts to preserve wild salmon in the Pacific Basin, Today, he would be classed ADD during his early years, This insightful book was written by his cousin, This was a free review copy obtained via Goodreads, com. After reading Upstream by Langdon Cook, which featured Guido Rahr as one of the interesting characters, this was a logical next book to read.
It was recommended by Jim Mantooth, who I work with, Upstream was very informative, but left do me with a lot of questions about the plight of salmon and what we can do.
Its that whole paradigm, the more you learn, the more you realize you dont know, Im sure someone said it more eloquently, but thats certainly how learning goes for me,

Guido Rahr is someone who has dedicated their life to salmon, This book is about his lifes work, We learn a lot about salmon, but it also brings us to places around the Pacific Rim where salmon are still thriving, like Kamchatka, “the only place on earth known to host every species of Pacific salmon”, and where they are struggling, like on the Columbia River.


At the start of the book, they are leaving Kamchatka, after doing their first exploitation there, Thats just the start of his impactful work, “Over the next twenty years and twentyfive expeditions, Guido would harness the power of oligarchs and billionaires on two continents to protect vast swaths of pristine wilderness and do more than any man alive to make the United States and Russia realize they were joint custodians of a massive watershed ecosystem held in place by salmon”.
Thats not an over statement, We meet these oligarchs and billionaires and see Guido effect change through these important relationships that result in geopolitical coordination throughout the Pacific Rim and effect changes in fishing that save salmon from poaching, logging, and other manmade travesties.


The book was written by his cousin, Tucker Malarkey, whose family also has a cabin on the Deschutes, They spent summers and weekends together growing up,

I found the book hard to put down, but the writing was confusing at a few moments in the book, especially when it switched from the author talking about Guido, her cousin, to talking about her experience.
Perhaps, with a better editor, that would have been resolved, I still give itbecause this is such a minor issue, That was my one complaint,

From here on there are some spoilers, Youve been warned assuming anyone actually reads my long reviews/summaries,


Guido had a connection to the natural world from a young age, and Tucker came to see the world the same when she was with him.
“With Guido, I became a part of the trees and wind, the buzz of insects and flitting of birds, I could sense the life in the undergrowth and beneath the surface of the water, There were few thoughts in this place, and for long moments my mind gave over to an overwhelming feeling of connection and a sensation I can only describe as joy”.


Their grandfather believed fly fishing was superior to tackle fishing, Why “fly fishermen were more respectful, intelligent, and even morally superior to lure fishermen A tackle fisherman also called a spinning, bait, lure, or gear fisherman has an easier go of it Compared to a homely dry fly, spinning lures are tantalizingly perfect imitations of minnows, and they prey on the vulnerability of surprise as well as a fishs sensitivity to light.
Once swallowed, the two treble hooks, one attached at the middle and the other to the end of the lure, are not designed for easy removal”.
Throughout the book, we see examples of what an amazing fly fisherman Guido is,

Steelhead were the first species of salmonid that grabbed his interest, Steelhead are the only salmonid that can spawn multiple times, and “are one of the longestliving salmonid in the Pacific, with life spans of up to eight years.
They are also the rarest”, “ steelhead seemed to change or alter their course within a single lifetime”, choosing anadromy when it was better for survival,

Atlantic salmon motivate Guido to prevent Pacific salmon from seeing the same fate, “That Atlantic salmon have all but disappeared from both Europe and the eastern seaboard makes Pacific salmon even more precious”, “It had taken one hundred years of aggressive overfishing, pollution, blocked rivers, and logging for European salmon runs to dry upone hundred years of a war on all fronts to defeat them.
While the Pacific coast was far from such a demise, Guido was recognizing that what had happened to Atlantic salmon could happen in the rivers he was standing in now.
Salmon were strong and resilient, but denied a few basic needs, they couldnt survive, The fact was, they didnt need that much, They needed clean, cold water and a way to reach their spawning grounds, But the Pacific Northwest was filling its salmon rivers with dams, causing agricultural pollution, and clearcutting the forests”, There is apparently still wild Atlantic salmon in some areas like northwestern Russia,

His approach to saving salmon is the same as the title, strongholds, He believed that “Protecting the healthiest salmon rivers would go a long way toward ensuring the speciess survival Instead of trying to mend what was already broken, he argued, protect what was intact”.


He mainly pursued this through his work with The Wild Salmon Center, which was founded by Pete Soverel, an exNavy Captain, and his friend Tom Pero, longtime editor of Trout Magazine.
Guido was the first executive director, He started out knowing nothing and became a powerful force for change, His approach was very effective, “His own experience had taught him that flexibility and an open mind were the most effective strategies when it came to conservation.
Of utmost importance was winning the cooperation of locals, This simple yet radical approach was one that no other international conservation group was embracing, Yet Guido knew that it was the locals who ultimately held the key to the future of their land, and if they did not see or feel the value of its protection, there was little an outsider could do to inspire their compliance”.


We also learn about Ecotrust, which was founded by his cousin Spencer Beebe, “Spencer adopted the term “conservation economy, ” In such an economy, protecting the environment became profitable for its people, A healthy ecosystem provided gifts, and these gifts could make its protection economically sustainable, In the silence and repose of Russias deep wilderness, Spencer shared his vision for Ecotrust, the organization he had founded to explore this new paradigm, along with models of development that fostered more resilient communities, economies, and ecosystems around the world”.
I love the is concept!

I disagreed with the books stereotyping of nonprofits, “It wasnt the nature of NGOs to work together they all had their particular niches and often competed for the same resources”.
Thats not how the land trusts I have worked for operate, I have seen an example or two of this, but its rare, Nonprofits usually are not turfy and just want to see the public good achieved,

Most of the book takes place in Russia, I knew there was a lot of corruption, but wow!
“Guido was beginning to grasp that the problem with the fisheries was the problem with Russia, and it was intractably deep, a cancer of corruption in the system that no one man could eradicate”.

“ poachers had taken over, and the salmon were being slaughtered, gutted for their roe, and left to rot in massive piles along the riverbanks”.
Theres a picture of this at the end of the book and all you can see are carcasses, as far as e eye can see.
Heart breaking!! The poachers are armed, and net the width of the river, killing all of the returning salmon,

I know a fair amount about salmon, but this book

added to both my knowledge and even more so, to my appreciation of salmon and their contributions to the ecosystem.

Salmon are truly a keystone species, “ a world without salmon would lead to a “trophic cascade, ”the collapse of a vast ecosystem”, “ an untamed salmon river was a bastion for all riparian lifeforms”,
The otolith bone can tell you a lot about salmon! “The black box was the otolith bone, a tiny calcified plate in the center of the fishs head.
The otolith was made up of thin, onionlike layers, and in these layers was written the life history of the fish, as detailed as a diary In a sliver of bone smaller than the tip of your smallest fingernail, one could determine age, ripeness, sex, fecundity, stomach contents, the presence of parasiteseven the amount of fat in the intestines Most important, one could see how long a salmon had been in freshwater and how long at sea, which opened a window onto a previously impenetrable mystery”.

You can also learn a lot from fin clippings and DNA analysis, which doesnt kill the fish,
Part of their research was to help establish what struggling West Coast populations of salmon beef to recover, Guido uses the pristine watersheds of Russias Far East to “set up field labs and begin to decode the mysteries of a perfect salmon habitat, a river without people or pipelines that could act as a natural laboratory so researchers could start establishing facts and findings that could be used to analyze, understand, and evaluate other rivers.
In essence, they were looking for a Rosetta stone for salmon habitat”, This research also helps them find the true strongholds that should be protected,
“DNA analysis of Sakhalin taimen, a searun species, had shown that they were the most ancient salmonid on earth, The taimen of the Tugur were the biggest of these dinosaur fish, but next to nothing was known about them”,

There was a lot about hatcheries,
Diversity of species is critical to a healthy salmon ecosystem, and hatcheries reduce that diversity by using a single fish to create millions of offspring.
That doesnt account for, for example, “wild steelhead of Eagle Creek had behaviors that had developed over tens of thousands of years, which made them part of a distinct history that belonged to an exact place”.

Hatcheries could lead to the eradication of wild salmon, “In America, wild salmon were disappearing, The American solution to this problem was to build hatcheries, Guido explained, but this only created more problems, Hatchery fish were not as adaptable or resilient as the wild fish, and they were outcompeting the wild fish for food and resources.
Soon these weaker hatchery fish could replace the robust fish of the wild”,
More on the impact of hatcheries, “ how one overactive hatchery could impact the entire salmon ecosystem flooding the oceans with hatchery fish threatened the survival of wild fish”.
She gave an example of an overactive Japanese hatchery whose fish were ending up in Alaska, impacting their healthy wild salmon populations.

“One only had to follow the life of a hatchery fish to understand why, Instead of returning to rivers to spawn, most hatchery fish returned to the hatchery, The rich food of the Pacific they gobbled up was thus not returned back into the ecosystem much of it ended up in the stainlesssteel bins of a factory.
As these overproduced fish edged out the wild fish with their sheer numbers, fewer and fewer wild salmon survived to make it back to their home rivers to spawn.
Without wild salmon returning to the rivers of the Pacific Rim, the vast ecosystems that relied on their rich nutrient supply suffered.
The impact moved steadily up the food chain, from microbes to insects, grasses, bushes, trees, amphibians, birds, mammals, and people If hatchery fish consumed most of the oceans food without returning it to the earth, every living organism that depended on wild salmon was at risk”.


The authors perception of Guido, particularly the following, is beautiful, and the book shows this is reality, “I realized Guido had always known how to live, More than ever I believed that he had taken his instruction from salmon, To live life to the fullest, swimming fast and hard and dying quickly, To not live a half life, to give everything to the journey”, Its one of the final sentences, and if you read the book, youll see the truth of it,


Update:

As of, the Tugur and Maia watersheds have gained legal protections!

Also, watch this video its great!
sitelink org/ .