The salmon have come back!
It was reported in l981 that more than 1,500 salmon come back to the Toyohira River in Sapporo that year. The people of Sapporo were delighted. For them, this was big news.
The Toyohira River is a stream which flows into the Ishikari River. Years ago it was very famous for its salmon. A great number of salmon returned and laid their eggs there every fall.
Then something happened. In l953 only six salmon were seen there. And after that, the people of Sapporo saw no salmon at all. They were all too busy to pay attention to what was happening to their river. And they did not notice that their river was almost dead, like so many rivers in big cities in those days.
Fortunately, not all the people of Sapporo forgot the lesson the salmon once taught. Some noticed that the river was too polluted for the salmon to return and lay their eggs. It was a sign that their environment was becoming worse. So these people started working in order to make the Toyohira River clean again. They regularly carried out tests in the river. These tests told them whether the water was safe enough for fish to live in. They told the people in Sapporo how important clean water was for their own lives. And little by little, over a long period of time, the water of the river began to get clean again.
One day in the fall of l978, two salmon were seen in the river. This was exciting news. It gave hope to the people who had worked for a cleaner river. A month later, "The Sapporo Salmon Association" was set up. Its members believed that they could bring the fish back if they made the river clean enough.
The big campaign began. The people knew that the river still had a small chance of getting the salmon to come back again. So they worked hard. Soon more people took an interest in the project, and offered to help. In the first year, 1,000,000 baby salmon were carefully put into the Toyohira River. In the second year, 1,400,000, and in the third year, another l, 400, 000, were released. People did not know for sure whether the released baby salmon would return. But, happily, in l981, 1,500 salmon did come back.
The people of Sapporo worked together and succeeded in bringing salmon back to their river. They also showed us that we can bring living things back to a once polluted river if we unite our efforts. And there is another good thing about this project. The "Come Back Salmon" project is now doing well in other parts of Japan. In many rivers, such as the Yura in Kyoto, the Arakawa in Tokyo, and the Chikuma in Nagano, baby salmon are released every year. And it is reported that the salmon are returning. Isn't it wonderful that we see salmon splashing in many of our rivers every fall?
It is already some time since the salmon came back to the Thames River in Britain. It is said that similar projects are going on successfully around the world. If we all unite our efforts as the people of Sapporo did, we may return to the balance of nature.