The history of introducing fish into American waterways is a story of interesting stories. Setting aside the ecological concerns of nonnative species for a moment, the paths taken by the ancestors of today’s trout and bass are remarkable. There are plenty of fantastical accounts of warming barrels of fry and derailed trail cars filled with parr. Of course, some may be apocryphal.

At the same time, when we watch a hatchery tanker filled with 100,000 juvenile salmon overturn and dump the majority of the fish into a river we can believe the fantastic.

This precise thing happened in early last week (April, 2024).

While we don’t know the end of the story, the beginning of this fish tale are certainly interesting:

While rounding a tight turn on a riverside highway,  an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife tanker truck flipped. The driver sustained minor injuries. About a quarter of the fish perished. But nearly 80,000 salmon ended up in water. Not the right water, mind you: but water nonetheless. And salmon water, to boot.

Lookingglass Creek feeds into the Grande Ronde River. While the Imnaha River was the Chinooks’ intended destination, it is also part of the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan. This program is a partnership between the state and the local tribes, who harvest salmon for culture, recreation, and sustenance. Since the Grande Ronde has seen the removal of migratory fish impediments, there is a good chance these salmon will get there anyhow. They’ll just have a little more work to do. Seeing as they survived a rolling semi trailer getting gashed open, they apparently have the kind of moxie that being anadromous takes.

And thus we read another tragic  beginning that has the potential for an interesting resolution. What will happen to those 80,000 salmon? What will happen to Lookingglass Creek? We don’t know the answer to either of those questions, but now the salmon are out of the truck. It is what it is. And who knows what it will be?

Ultimately, that is the story of people and the natural world. Certainly, semi accidents are the kind of thing that can only happen with people. But landslides, floods, and oxbows happen too… without the aid, interference, or meddling of humans. Seemingly random things happen and interesting things are the result.

Personally, it brings a smile to my face to think of those salmon that flipped and flopped their way into the Lookingglass. They’re not where they’re supposed to be, but good for them.