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Scarecrow Tactics by Marvin J. Entel Lewiston Tribune, September 3, 2026

"If I Only Had a Brain" sung by the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz" Broadway musical and later in a movie, reminds me of the scarecrow tactics advocates for breaching the lower Snake River dams use to try to convince us how much better we would be if the dams were breached.

They try all kinds of scarecrow tactics like: Salmon are becoming extinct. The salmon are our cultural significant god. The salmon are our main food diet. We're starving for lack of salmon.

These folks haven't figured out that the people with a brain can show by evidence that the greatest return of spring and summer Chinook took place when large numbers of fish smolts were barged and the returns from 2003 to 2007 were the greatest in the history of fish counts since 1939, when fish began to be counted at Bonneville Dam.

It is a fact 95% of salmon returns were reduced from roughly millions of Chinook from lost habitat and overharvest to 286,156 Chinook crossing Bonneville in 1939. Except for the few years millions of smolts were barged past all the Snake and Columbia rivers dams, fish counts remained relatively the same until Judge Michael Simon ordered the dams to spill with smolts remaining in the river and the numbers have declined ever since.

If you're interested in the true information about fish preservation and dams in place, take a look at information presented by The Citizens for Preservation of Fish and Dams at cfpfd.org.

Related Pages:
Policy Recommendations from Idaho Governor Brad Little's Salmon Workgroup December 2020

Related Pages:
No Habitat, No Fish by Marvin J. Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 2/16/25
Not the Whole Story by LuVerne Grussing, Lewiston Tribune, 3/30/25

Wrong Dam Plan by Marvin J. Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 12/20/23
Snake River Dams are Working for Us All by Marvin J. Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 8/17/22
Brainwashing the Youth by Marvin Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 6/30/22
Numbers Tell the Story by Marvin Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 7/12/22
Fish Counts Tell the Story by Marvin Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 6/19/22
Reads It Differently by Marvin Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 5/24/22
Fish Not Extinct by Marvin J. Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 3/6/22
Agrees with Little by Marvin Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 1/26/20
Save Our Lakes by Marvin Entel, Lewiston Tribune, 2/3/19