I will never stop eating salmon.

I was taken aback by the (false) syllogism that headlined the recent letter to the Sounder (“If you love Orcas, stop eating salmon”) as in: “What? Are you kidding?”

Now, there are fine arguments for the vegan cause. I maintain a dog-eared copy of “Diet for a Small Planet” myself and fully support the abolition of factory farms for pig, cow and chicken. To paraphrase the late Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “First they came for the steak eaters and I said, ‘Good riddance.’” (Although Oprah Winfrey got handed her hat after declaiming the conditions under which hamburger is produced by the boys from big beef.)

A personal encounter with a hamburger under the auspices of a couple hundred micrograms of LSD (your writer, not the hamburger) did the trick for me. No more of that, thanks.

In any event, since orca whales will eschew such low-grade offerings as Atlantic salmon when wild Pacific king is around, and since orcas are certainly the most intelligent creatures on the planet (see the documentary “Blackfish” for confirmation of this) and since this moss-headed son of the Salish Sea greatly appreciates intelligence wherever it manifests or leads, you’ll get me to stop eating salmon when you pry the fork from my cold dead fingers.

More wild salmon, healthier and more intelligent hominoids, fewer tautologies, please.

Joseph Murphy

Eastsound