Are we going too far to rescue threatened species?

Are we not going far enough?

And why does Parker feel like a ghost in his own town?

For many rural Westerners, three words guarantee to get the blood boiling: Endangered Species Act.

Ed Grotting, a crewman on Dan Parker's trawler, helped load a new net onto another fishing boat. Experienced hands are having trouble making ends meet in a moribund fishing business. (John Gibbins / Union-Tribune)

The federal act was crafted in 1973 to protect threatened animals and plants. Mainstream environmentalists consider it an essential conservation tool.

But many developers, politicians and others continue to rail against its implementation, accusing the government and environmental groups of critter coddling.

A separate but related law, the Sustainable Fisheries Act, is also under fire.

Over 1,200 plants and animals are on federal endangered or threatened lists. An additional 250 are proposed for listing, adding to tensions across the West.

Those tensions are at a boil in Astoria.

The hilly town of 10,000 people overlooks the rowdy meeting of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean, where Lewis and Clark first spied the sea.

For decades, it was a thriving lumber port, but when the northern spotted owl was declared endangered in the 1980s, government leasing to major logging companies was curtailed.

Dan Parker (left) talked with fellow trawler owner Frank James about new regulations that will further curtail how much fish they can catch. (John Gibbins / Union-Tribune)

Much of Oregon's storied lumber economy crumbled.

Then, in the 1990s, more than 20 species of Pacific Northwest salmon landed on the federal endangered list, crippling Astoria's salmon industry.

Maybe the little town had it coming. Maybe it was payback for all those decades when Astoria held nature in its crosshairs, shipping lumber, bagging salmon.

But now the heart of its maritime economy -- the groundfish industry -- is also on the rocks.

The groundfish catch along the Pacific coast has earned about $70 million a year, making it the most economically important fishery in the West.

About 80 species of groundfish live along the Oregon coast alone, including restaurant favorites like sole and rockfish, often sold as Pacific snapper.

Yet federal officials, citing the Sustainable Fisheries Act, declared the fishery a disaster last year after several species were found in low numbers.

Government regulators link the dwindling counts to overfishing and climate changes. They have cut permitted harvests by half since 1996.

Now they want to reduce the fishing fleet by the same amount.

Dan Parker (left) talked with fellow trawler owner Frank James about new regulations that will further curtail how much fish they can catch. (John Gibbins / Union-Tribune)

Surveys conducted in Oregon show most commercial anglers, strapped for money, want out too.

Many complain about the government, saying the groundfish counts are incomplete. They note the counts are based on fish processed, rather than the total catch.

"There's just so much we don't know," says Bob Eaton of the Pacific Marine Conservation Council, an industry group based in Astoria.

Some also feel deceived, noting the fleet was developed with the government's blessing.

Federal and state regulators encouraged harvests 20 years ago, providing anglers with tax breaks and other incentives.

Astoria fisherman Dave Duncan is among those getting out, having seen his industry go from economic powerhouse to basket case.

Astoria once had 22 canneries on its working waterfront. A handful remain. Astoria used to dock 500 cargo vessels a year. It hasn't seen one since 1996.

Dan Parker's cat Ginger waited onboard the Sea Eagle as the crew prepared to leave on a chartered scientific voyage. (John Gibbins / Union-Tribune)

Duncan, who grew up in San Diego, recently sold his fishing boat and bought another vessel to start a new career as a river guide. He shows the historic Columbia to tourists.

"If I can share with other people all these incredible things I've seen, it may just make me feel good about life again," Duncan says.

Another fisherman became a taxidermist. And another wants to hang fiber-optic cable.

Dan Parker and his two-man crew still work the waters, though. He's handcuffed by catch limits, but makes extra money as a marine surveyor.

Today when he pilots the Sea Eagle into Astoria, he passes empty warehouses, rotten pilings and railroad tracks fringed with weeds.

Huge flotillas plied the Oregon coast a generation ago, dragging nets and lines and raking the sea for salmon, groundfish and other marine life.

Boats from Poland. Boats from South Korea. Boats from Astoria, known as the oldest U.S. settlement west of the Rockies. American businessman John Jacob Astor established a fur trading post in the community in 1811.

Parker, a Vietnam veteran, became a commercial fisherman in the 1970s.

This was no desk job. Parker was trapped once in a capsized boat. Another time, he was jailed for passing through restricted waters. His three children grew up during his long stretches at sea and that pained him.

Once, his 250-foot-wide net briefly snagged a Soviet submarine rooting around the coast. He got some ink over it … and a lot of ribbing.

Dan Parker, enemy of groundfish and Commies.

All those adventures, all those sacrifices, and how many people, even today, appreciate the hard life of a commercial fisherman?

"When people eat fish, I wonder if they ever think about how it got there in the first place," says Gayle Parker of Astoria. (She is unrelated to Dan Parker).

About 30 bottom-fish boats are left in Astoria, the historic heart of Oregon's trawler industry. Some are for sale, but selling an old trawler is tough.

Scores of commercial anglers are reluctantly seeking new work, with the aid of government job training programs. Gayle Parker helps run one of the programs.

"For years, they worked hard at sea, fighting the savage beast," she says. "Now they are saying, `What do I do now?' "

Efforts to protect threatened or endangered fish are reshaping life elsewhere, too.

In Oregon's Klamath Basin, farmers were forced to let hay fields go brown and to give up annual plantings due to the recent water shut-off. Nearby marshes usually rich in waterfowl dried up.

Struggling with a drought, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation blocked the water in April to protect the endangered suckerfish, threatened coho salmon and other wildlife.

Anger over the move ran so deep that Klamath locals, wielding chain saws, temporarily reopened irrigation gates to the basin at least twice. Last month, federal authorities partially turned the spigot back on.

In Portland and other cities, new rules protecting salmon habitat are affecting road development, construction and even the shape of culverts. Seattle scientists are implanting microchips in salmon to track their passage to the sea.

U.S. Army engineers spend $3 million a year to transport young salmon on barges and trucks around dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.

Critics call the program absurd, saying we're going overboard to protect fish. Some consider it a sign that U.S. environmental laws need overhaul.

Others say we're not doing enough and want the giant dams removed.

"Giving boat rides to fish is what we've come to … and it doesn't work," says Autumn Hanna of the group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The federal government has spent more than $3 billion on salmon recovery programs in the past decade. Some species of wild salmon remain on the edge of extinction.

In Astoria, Parker tries to set his own course. He's weathered so much already … gnarly storms, foreign competition, run-ins with submarines.

"I'm 51 and I'm thrashed," he says.

Yet there he was again on a recent summer morning, barreling out of the Columbia and into the sea.

"Fishing is part of this region's character," he says. "And it seems to me we're forgetting that."

Steve Schmidt may be reached at steve.schmidt@uniontrib.com.