Story by Mark Hume with Photography by Nick Didlick He’s 88 and admits to failing health, but Ron MacLeod’s mind remains as sharp as a well-honed fish hook and his passion for protecting salmon is undiminished. Proof of that lies in a brilliant paper he has just written, with long time work colleague, Al Wood, which he hopes will stir a public outcry against government. This is an old warrior who is squaring up for one last fight. And politicians will ignore him at their peril. His paper, Epic Fail, is posted on A River Never Sleeps.com in the Currents section. It chronicles the decline of Pacific salmon stocks and warns that a total collapse – on the scale of the Atlantic cod catastrophe – is in the making, unless things change. Mr. MacLeod, a former director general of the department of Fisheries and Oceans, goes beyond doom saying. He lays out the history of failed government policies that have propelled us to this point, and offers solutions. In his paper he urges the public to stop whinging about the way things are and to start organizing to force action by government. If we don’t put the heat on politicians, he says, salmon will go over an environmental cliff. Jarring the political system isn’t going to be easy, he says, but it can be done. “It’s going to take an emotional outburst from British Columbians,” said Mr. MacLeod. “And if we want change, now is the time . . . there will be a provincial election next year, and a federal election in three years. . .politicians are open to change if they feel they will lose enough votes.” As a young boy Mr. MacLeod went on patrol with his father, then a fisheries...