On September 7, 2021, Maine’s U.S. Senators, Susan Collins and Angus King, announced that four organizations in Maine had been selected to receive $900,000 to support ongoing efforts to restore wild Atlantic salmon populations in Maine.
If you did not know some history, this boast by Maine’s senators in Washington, DC, would sound as if they have always been big boosters of saving salmon from extinction. Not so.
In 1993, RESTORE: The North Woods, filed the first petition to protect Atlantic salmon throughout their historic range under the national Endangered Species Act (ESA). For a couple of years, the federal agencies hemmed and hawed despite overwhelming evidence that Atlantic salmon were on the brink of extirpation in the Unites States and the last runs of wild salmon were in Maine.
Meanwhile, the host of a local public tv program focused on Maine issues named Angus King Jr. decided to run for governor as an Independent, despite having no experience in elective office. in 1994, King self-published and widely distributed a book detailing his vision for Maine. In his book, entitled “Angus King, Independent for Governor, Making a Difference,” he did not address the salmon ESA issue directly. However, he did indirectly by promising to streamline regulatory processes. He wrote: “My administration is going to do everything we can to be sure that when it comes to regulation, we aim before we pull the trigger.” (p. 68)
Thanks to a third-party candidate who siphoned votes from the expected Democratic victor, King won election with just over a third of the vote. By the time he became Maine governor in 1995, Angus King was ready to do whatever it took to thwart the listing of Atlantic salmon under the Endangered Species Act.
In 1995, King railed against the ESA listing from the governor’s bully pulpit. In 1996, Governor Angus King warned federal regulators that if the fish were listed, Maine would stop cooperating on salmon restoration efforts. In 1997, he had the state submit a plan to deflect the ESA listing and got the federal agencies to withdraw the proposed listing. He thought he had won the battle.
However, in 1999, the federal agencies admitted the truth: the survival of wild Atlantic salmon was unquestionably endangered in the U.S. and King’s plan was doomed to fail. The agencies restarted the process to list Atlantic salmon under the ESA.
The response from senior Maine officials was fast, furious, and ferocious. Gov. Angus King, in stunningly inappropriate language, scapegoated conservation organizations working to save the salmon from extinction. He raged that the federal government’s science was junk. He claimed that “wild” Atlantic salmon did not exist because they’d been breeding for years with escapees from salmon aquaculture operations. He said there were plenty of salmon at the fish counter of the grocery stories. He even warned that listing the salmon under the ESA would destroy the state’s blueberry, aquaculture, and pulp and paper industries through excessive environmental regulation.
But he was not alone. At a 2000 hearing in Machias, Maine’s senior U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe (R) said giving the Atlantic salmon ESA protection would be the “economic decapitation” of Washington County. Maine’s other U.S. Senator, Susan Collins (R), hit all the same points. The news media reported that, at the Machias hearing, "Sen. Susan Collins's opening remark that she was 'completely opposed' to listing brought the crowd to its feet...She castigated the feds..." She warned of “serious implications for the aquaculture, blueberry, cranberry, and forest products industries” if the ESA listing went ahead. She said that ESA listing “threatens to wreak havoc on the economy of Downeast Maine.” In an effort to undermine and derail the ESA process, at the urging of King, Snowe and Collins even secured funding for a National Academy of Sciences (NSA) review of the genetic evidence.
Before the NAS review could be completed, Angus King had one more trick to try. On November 17, 2000,seven years after RESTORE’s original petition, the Gulf of Maine population of Atlantic salmon was listed as endangered under the national Endangered Species Act. On December 7, 2000, Gov. Angus King had the State of Maine sue the federal government in an effort to overturn the salmon ESA listing.
Meanwhile, the National Academy of Sciences review of the genetic evidence was underway. On January 8, 2002, the Bangor Daily News reported: "Counter to what many top state officials...have long contended, Maine's wild Atlantic salmon are genetically unique, and therefore, worthy of protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report released Monday. King and members of the state's congressional delegation in 2000 criticized a federal decision to list the fish in eight Maine rivers as endangered.” The NAS review backed up the federal scientists and refuted the State’s arguments.
The following year, 2003, a federal court rejected Maine’s legal challenge to the ESA listing. By then Angus King was term limited out of office as governor. The new administration of Gov. John Baldacci decided not to appeal.
In 2005, a recovery plan for the Gulf of Maine Atlantic salmon population was published. During the next several years, from 2006 to 2009, in the face of numerous law suits brought by conservationists, the federal agencies expanded the salmon ESA listing to other important Maine rivers. They also designated critical habitat as required by law.
In 2012, Olympia Snowe announced she would be quitting the U.S. Senate. Angus King was elected to fill her seat and has been in the Senate since 2013. Susan Collins was reelected to the Senate for her fifth six-year term in 2020.
King, Snowe, and Collins were proven wrong on all counts in their opposition to listing the Atlantic salmon under the Endangered Species Act. King, in particular, had scapegoated RESTORE for filing the original petition. None has ever apologized.
Since Atlantic salmon was listed under the ESA in 2000, federal funding has poured into Maine to support efforts to rescue the species and for habitat protection. Wild Atlantic salmon remain on the brink of extinction in the U.S. but at least the investment of nearly a million dollars announced earlier this month by King and Collins to support efforts to restore wild Atlantic salmon populations in Maine gives the species a fighting chance.