Published: Thursday, June 18, 2009

What you see is what you get. That’s about the status of anadromous-fish passage here in the Happy Valley.

If you’re content with maybe 200 Atlantic salmon and less than 200,000 American shad annually, rejoice, you’ve got it. Want more? Too bad. Ain’t happening anytime soon. Not now or ever. Case closed. Rhetoric be damned.

Yeah, I know, the recent gray, unsettled weather has stabilized the Connecticut River temperature in the mid-60s, prolonging the annual run. More shad and salmon may yet appear before it climbs to 70 and they stop migrating. Uh-hu, could happen. And maybe you’ll discover the money tree if you walk through the woods on enough hot, steamy days. Then again, perhaps if you suffer here on earth, there’ll be a better day in mythical paradise. Get the point? It’s all about that pot of gold. Some chase it. Some don’t. Count me among the latter. In my finite world, reality ain’t that hard to swallow.

I’ve seen the white, extended-cab, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service trucks out along our dirt roads in recent weeks, crews depositing immature Connecticut River-strain salmon progeny into our bubbly streams. I’ve seen them in my back yard, in Whately, in Conway, in Ashfield. You name it, for decades they’ve been there. True-believers, these altruistic souls doing the stocking. Totally committed. Ignore the numbers, they say. Numbers are irrelevant.

Imagine that: numbers meaningless, at least so long as they’re depressing. Tell me, do you suppose they’d still be meaningless if the salmon-count miraculously jumped to 1,000, 1,500, 15,000? Yeah, sure. Give me a break. Let that happen and you’ll hear about salmon numbers on your radio, your TV, in the newspapers (if any survive), and from the red-clad town crier with the long brass bugle. You couldn’t escape it if you tried. Sort of like Chandra Levy or Terri Shiavo. They’d slap you upside the head with their numbers then, the same ones they now call insignificant. And trust me, the media would swallow it hook, line and sinker, hawk it like a Fenway frank. ”Hear ye, hear ye!” they’d bark. ”Read all about it! The salmon are back!” They’d flash it on the tube, tease to it in the crawl along the bottom of the screen. Breaking news: long-lost salmon are back in New England.

But when the numbers are embarrassing, as they are today, it’s all about damage control, propaganda, classroom deception and field trips; chasing yellow swallowtails through goldenrod meadows. Patience, jackass, patience: that’s the message. Don’t you understand? Numbers are meaningless in scientific experiments. Yeah, right! Sounds good. And while you’re at it, stop by, I’ve found the Holy Grail in my attic. Honest. There it was, buried in a stack of old plates; cups and saucers; goblets, too. I’ll let it go cheap to a worthy man, if there is such a thing.

As much as I hate to admit it, I have been looking at the numbers for three decades; studying them, comparing them, trying to digest them, make sense of it all. Guess what? They’re trending in the wrong direction. Has anyone else noticed? Shhhhhhhhh. There I go again, mentioning numbers. I should realize by now that they don’t matter. How could I forget? Shame, shame, shame on me, the gadfly, buzzing in their faces, stinging the back of their necks, the small of their legs, burrowing into their eye sockets, their ears; no relief, an unmerciful pest. Oh, how the truth stings.

So, just in case you were wondering, 69 salmon and 157,000 shad had been counted in the river basin through Tuesday. That’s fresh off the federal Web site, updated daily; then confirmaton by direct e-mail straight from the Connecticut River Coordinator’s office. By the way, if numbers aren’t important, then why do they record them daily, annually, historically? Why don’t they hide them in the same vault with their expense sheets? You tell me. Sometimes it’s hard to figure.

All I can say is that I’m giving it my best shot. Not good enough, I guess, because I refuse to play the fool.

Truth is, it takes only a simple mind to see that something just doesn’t add up.