France's river Seine, which begins at the coast across from the English channel, near Honfleur and runs right on through Paris and past, was used as a dumping ground for centuries. The Seine around Paris was so polluted by human and animal waste in the middle ages that there were bawdy French rhymes about it. But elsewhere, outside of Paris, the Seine was teeming with life, and provided not only lesser fish for human consumption, but salmon, the king of fish. But that changed, as more and more industrial waste was dumped into the river, so that by 1995 only the more tolerant species—only four of those (specifically, eel, carp, bream and roach) were to be found.

But now, according to Siaap, the Parisian authority for water purification, after a little more than 15 years of stringent regulation, wild salmon and over 30 other species, including among them sea trout, river herring and marine lampreys, have returned to the Seine. According to this article, last October someone caught a 15.5lb wild Atlantic salmon in the Seine. That hasn't happened in 70 years.

Sometimes, in an era filled with news of yet another extinct species, or one more body of water deemed too toxic with man-made pollutants to support life, there is good news. This is one of those times.