Today is day three, the last day, of the conference on in Portland, Oregon. As the web page suggests:

We hope that this conference will inspire collaboration among the 300+ expected attendees, including scientific, management, conservation, indigenous, industry, and political communities.

Many of these attendees have traveled a long ways to attend — from Russia, Japan, and even New Zealand.

I suppose if I read the web page a little more carefully before registering I might not be as disillusioned as I am at the moment.

The meeting will culminate in a panel discussion to develop a vision of working together to contain and manage ecological risk. Outcomes will include a comprehensive annotated bibliography on the subject of ecological interactions between wild and hatchery salmon, peer-reviewed proceedings including the latest research, identification of critical research gaps, and next steps for developing practical management tools.

For one who likes to explore meaning behind language and words — this statement above is basically suggesting that we are going to keep talking, ruminating, and pondering – resulting in a list of things we might do.

And… thus… we are writing the job description for the variety of scientists out there researching these things. Look we got all these experts together and here’s the gaps we need to fill.

The problem with gaps in science is that it’s like the worse bridge building project ever…. every time a new bridge span is put in place the gap widens… rather than closes.

That’s the thing with ‘questions’ and ‘gaps in knowledge’ — answer one, and two more pop up, answer those two and four more pop-up.

like battling the Greek monster Hydra…

Is there a better way?