government officials in the us have announced that wild Pacific salmon are nearly extinct. They have also put major urban areas on notice that millions of people may face disruptions and higher living costs if the fish is to be restored as the law requires.

The proposed listing of at least a dozen Salmon runs from California's Central Valley to the entire Puget Sound basin as endangered. As we work to save the salmon it may turn out that the salmon save us, said Paul Schell, the Mayor of Seattle.

According to him, this is the first time that so many people have been given notice that they will have to alter their lives to restore the wild species. This broad-scale approach is being billed as the wave of the future for threatened-species listings, Paul said.

Terry Garcia, the assistant secretary of commerce, usa, said, "We will not allow extinction of the species. On the west coast, officials have known for years that salmon stocks are in precarious shape. In Sacramento winter chinook have fallen from an average 86,500 fish a year in the 1960s to 830. In the Puget Sound area, 22 of the 25 known chinook salmon have faced rapid decline.