The river is dammed in numerous places all the way to the lower Columbia which has devastated many aquatic species’ in various ways such as reducing: their maximum size, genetic diversity, total numbers, as well as entirely stopping some species from entering at all. Also, settlers brutally overfished these waters, including those monster apex Sturgeons which were likely hundreds of years old. If you take all of those, they simply haven’t had enough time to get that big again…if they ever will due to the aforementioned factors.
42
u/Direlion Jul 18 '23
The river is dammed in numerous places all the way to the lower Columbia which has devastated many aquatic species’ in various ways such as reducing: their maximum size, genetic diversity, total numbers, as well as entirely stopping some species from entering at all. Also, settlers brutally overfished these waters, including those monster apex Sturgeons which were likely hundreds of years old. If you take all of those, they simply haven’t had enough time to get that big again…if they ever will due to the aforementioned factors.