Now the salmon that once filled the rivers and streams of Whatcom County year after year are an endangered resource and an icon of environmental fragility here in the Pacific Northwest.  Over the past sixty years salmon populations in the Nooksack River Basin have declined dramatically and several salmonid species have been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, including two native runs of spring Chinook salmon.  Salmon are the glue connecting and sustaining a vast web of creatures, large and small.  Though we no longer depend on salmon for our daily survival, we are still inextricably linked to them environmentally, economically, and culturally.