Federal water managers at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers say they will adjust water levels behind John Day Dam (Lake Umatilla), in north-central Oregon, this week to prepare for another round of heavy precipitation in the Columbia River Basin. This will be the third atmospheric river storm event within the last two weeks.

The two-rod validation will not be available for the Willamette River in 2026 as the forecast for hatchery-origin adult fish does not meet the minimum return threshold.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lost 18% of its staff under the Trump administration, dropping from 9,957 to 8,179, nationwide between 2024 and the end of May. The reduction in biologists and other staffers was discovered in data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Biological Diversity.

After four humpback whales were entangled this year in Oregon commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear, conservation groups have formally petitioned the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to adopt measures to reduce risk to the endangered animals.

Killer whales or orca have been observed hunting with Pacific white-sided dolphins in the waters off British Columbia, Canada and sharing fish scraps with them after making a kill, according to research published in Scientific Reports. The authors suggest that the findings represent the first documented recording of cooperative hunting between orca and dolphins.

A 2022 rule by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission that allows trap, haul and trucking of fish over barriers, in addition to the already allowed volitional passage for fish, was overturned by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The use of artificial beaver dams to replicate the ecological benefits created by the industrious rodents shows promise for offsetting damage to fish habitat, water quality, and biodiversity arising from climate change.

New research uses more than 40 years of data from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat satellites to help dam operators improve the health of salmon fisheries.

Idaho Fish and Game has launched a new study to better understand largemouth bass populations in the eight Chain Lakes connected to Coeur d’Alene Lake. The project was developed through ongoing conversations and collaboration with local bass anglers and bass fishing groups.

California’s Wildlife Conservation Board has approved $87,125,538 in grants for 16 projects across 14 counties to protect critical wildlife habitat, restore rivers and streams, and conserve culturally and ecologically significant lands.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife scientists are using environmental DNA (eDNA) to take an unprecedented look at what lives in the state’s rivers, with the goal of conducting a census of every major river and drainage in Washington over the next seven years.

During the annual salmon run last fall, University of Washington researchers pulled salmon DNA out of thin air and used it to estimate the number of fish that passed through the adjacent river. Aden Yincheong Ip, a UW research scientist of marine and environmental affairs, began formulating the driving hypothesis for the study while hiking on the Olympic Peninsula.

July through September are the dryest and hottest parts of the year, with 2025 being the third consecutive year of drought in the Yakima River Basin.

A Chinese mitten crab, a prohibited species in Oregon, was found in the Willamette River near Portland’s Sellwood Bridge and reported to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on Nov. 17.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced four proposed rules that it says “will restore Endangered Species Act regulations to their proven 2019 and 2020 framework.” If approved, the new rules would prohibit critical habitat designation for species threatened by climate change and allow economic impacts to be considered in species protections.

A new paper in Biology Methods and Protocols, published by Oxford University Press, finds that researchers can now distinguish wild from farmed salmon using “deep learning,” potentially greatly improving strategies for environmental protection.

People across Oregon are being urged to avoid contact with sick or dead birds as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) continues to impact wild and domestic bird populations across the state. There is currently no effective treatment for wild and domestic birds, and the virus can spread rapidly among bird populations and potentially to other wildlife.

Details of the proposal for a 100-mile high tension power line that would be laid beneath the Columbia River, rather than travel over land, was aired last week by developers of the project in three public meetings.

Steller and California sea lions are known to take a big chunk of early migrating adult salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River, but a recent study has also found that Steller sea lions are eating more than 2 million young Chinook salmon along Washington’s northwest coastline.

Floating solar panels are emerging as a promising clean energy solution with environmental benefits, but a new study finds those effects vary significantly depending on where the systems are deployed.

The Bonneville Power Administration shared its end-of-year financial performance results for fiscal year 2025 at its Nov. 13 Quarterly Business Review, saying it had hit all financial targets.

Wild wolves living in Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Territory on BC’s central coast have learned to pull crab traps out of the ocean—behavior that represents the first documented case of potential tool use in the species, according to a new study.

One of the enduring ichthyological mysteries is how migratory fish know when it is time to move from their winter to summer habitats. The ability to tell when the seasons are changing is crucial for a wide range of major life events, including feeding and spawning, as well as migration.

For a century there have been just five places in the continental United States with year-round frozen peaks — all in Washington state. But newly published research documents that these ice-capped summits are changing — melting — faster than many thought possible.

New research has confirmed that West Coast transient killer whales who live between British Columbia and California are two distinct subpopulations: inner and outer coast transients.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has published preliminary harvest and value figures for the 2025 Alaska Commercial Salmon Fishery.

New research from Simon Fraser University Biological Sciences researchers finds that Pacific salmon are facing escalating threats due to a lack of coordinated conservation policy and oversight.

A forest practices rule targeting small, non-fish bearing perennial streams in western Washington was approved by the state’s Forest Practices Board Nov. 12. The rule includes wider logging buffers and provides options to reduce warming in the streams that are generally found in higher elevations where the streams originate, but which feed larger streams that host trout, salmon and steelhead.

What if solar power production could be developed in ways that coexist with existing farms, orchards and ranches? A new state-funded report, co-authored by Washington State University researchers, evaluates the feasibility of such an approach, known as “agrivoltaics.” Researchers found that it could work across tens of thousands of acres of Washington farmland — producing power, offering shade to protect certain crops and livestock, and keeping agricultural land in operation.

A satellite imagery analysis shows that the 2021 “heat dome” scorched almost 5% of the forested area in western Oregon and western Washington, turning foliage in canopies from a healthy green to red or orange, sometimes within a matter of hours.

Earth is reflecting less sunlight, and absorbing more heat, than it did several decades ago. Global warming is advancing faster than climate models predicted, with observed temperatures exceeding projections in 2023 and 2024. These trends have scientists scrambling to understand why the atmosphere is letting more light in.

The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the Trump administration for what it says is a failure to decide whether to protect Olympic marmots, a rare species that lives only on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. The marmots are threatened by climate change and predation by coyotes.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and Puget Sound Energy announced that this year a record number of sockeye salmon returned to northwest Washington’s Skagit Bay and the Skagit River on their annual spawning migration.

2024 was the hottest year on record and likely the hottest in at least 125,000 years, according to an annual report issued by an international coalition led by Oregon State University scientists.

The Arctic landscape during the Cretaceous Period may have been dominated by the dinosaurs, but the rivers and streams held something more familiar.

Following an “unprecedented” level of livestock attacks across the Sierra Valley, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has lethally removed four gray wolves from the Beyem Seyo pack. This action follows months of intensive non-lethal management efforts to reduce livestock loss and, the agency says, “is grounded in the best available science and understanding of wolf biology.”

A federal court ruled this week that the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service broke multiple environmental laws in approving the Knotty Pine logging project in the Kootenai National Forest. The proposed project is deep in the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear recovery zone of northwest Montana.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and its partners have initiated a second year of spring-run Chinook salmon reintroduction efforts into historic habitat in the North Yuba River.

Salmon are making further progress in their return to the upper Klamath Basin, with fisheries biologists from ODFW and The Klamath Tribes celebrating a series of firsts as salmon reach areas where they have been absent for over a century.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife fishery managers will hold two virtual town halls on coastal steelhead to review 2024-25 returns, present 2025-26 run forecasts, and summarize proposed fishing regulations.

Two fault systems on North America’s West Coast – the Cascadia subduction zone and the San Andreas fault – may be synchronized, with earthquakes on one fault potentially triggering seismic events on the other, a new study found.

A large habitat restoration effort is set to begin this fall on northern Idaho’s Pack River delta, continuing work to improve fish and wildlife habitat in Lake Pend Oreille. Construction on the third phase of the project will begin late this month or early next month, just east of the area locals refer to as Mud Lake.

The Center for Biological Diversity has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect two declining freshwater fish species in Oregon and California under the Endangered Species Act. Petitions were submitted for the Umpqua chub in southwestern Oregon and the northern roach in northeastern California and southern Oregon.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and California Trout, joined by several community and conservation partners, invite the public to join in celebrating the fall return of Chinook salmon to the Shasta River in the Klamath Basin.

On Sept. 30, the Bonneville Power Administration made its annual payment to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for the 42nd consecutive year on time and in full, bringing cumulative payments to approximately $36.6 billion since 1984. The total payment for fiscal year 2025 was $1.2 billion.

Before bear spray, encounters between people and bears often ended in bullets. That changed when graduate student Carrie Hunt developed the life-saving deterrent at the University of Montana in the 1980s.

Angling in the Big Sky state has a sizable economic impact. A recent study from the University of Montana, Bureau of Business and Economic Research and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks shows that in 2024 more than 450,000 resident and nonresident anglers spent a combined $1.27 billion on fishing trips in Montana.

In response to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and Bird Alliance of Oregon, a federal judge found that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2022 determination that the streaked horned lark is threatened and not endangered is unlawful. The court ordered the Service to reconsider within one year whether the lark warrants endangered species protections.

For the fifth time, the Washington Department of Ecology is getting ready to offer competitive grants for streamflow restoration projects. The upcoming grant cycle includes up to $40 million in available funding for projects that aim to improve streamflows throughout the state.

The 2025 Northern Pikeminnow Sport-Reward Fishery season has been extended through Oct. 12 at select registration stations. The reward program, funded by Bonneville Power Administration, pays anglers to catch predatory northern pikeminnow, a native fish that consumes millions of juvenile salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers each year.

Angling has been closed on the lowest reach of Eagle Creek in Oregon’s Clackamas basin from Sept. 27 through Oct. 31 to give coho salmon a safe resting area amid ongoing low water flows. The closure is from SE Dowty Road downstream to the Clackamas River confluence.

The Columbia River adult fall chinook return is decent this year for the most part, based on passage numbers at Bonneville Dam, but warm water temperatures are making it hard on the fish moving toward the lower Snake River and Upper Columbia.

Adult sockeye salmon migrating to Canada’s Okanagan River Basin will have a better chance to survive and spawn during drought years following a successful, “trap-and-haul” pilot project carried out July 16, 2025 by Grant PUD, Chelan PUD and Canada’s Okanagan Nation Alliance with ample support from agencies on both sides of the border.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has confirmed the presence of the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome on two bats captured at Libby Dam in Lincoln County.

The Walla Walla basin is a complex watershed that crosses the border between Oregon and Washington. Its rivers and streams connect the two states, but the watershed is chronically short on water and struggles to meet the needs of local communities. Watershed restoration and water management projects are increasingly important to the basin and those efforts will soon receive new support from both Washington and Oregon.

Idaho Fish and Game is launching a conservation project this fall to protect native Yellowstone cutthroat trout in the Teton River Canyon. On Oct. 8, biologists will conduct a rotenone treatment on the lower 5.5 miles of Badger Creek to reduce non-native rainbow trout that pose a threat to the genetic integrity of native cutthroat.

For millennia, Indigenous people living in Alaska and Canada’s Yukon territory have relied on Chinook salmon. The large, fatty fish provide essential nutrients for Arctic living and have influenced traditions and languages across generations.

The Washington Department of Ecology issued an official rebuke of a draft report by the U.S. Department of Energy being used to justify the Trump Administration’s rollback of federal climate regulations. At the same time, Ecology also released a new analysis that details worsening local impacts now and in the future due to rising global emissions.

Measuring mountain snowpack at strategically selected hotspots consistently outperforms broader basin-wide mapping in predicting water supply in the western United States, a new study found.

Oregon may soon have a new wildlife area in Union County called the Qapqápa Wildlife Area (pronounced cop-COP-a). The property would be owned by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and co-managed with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, continuing a decades-long partnership.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District has awarded a $15 million construction contract to Syblon-Reid Co. to build a new fish ladder at the Mill Creek Diversion Dam in Walla Walla.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recent legislatively adopted budget did not include funding to continue the operation of Salmon River Hatchery near Lincoln City, one of more than 30 hatcheries that ODFW maintains in the state.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, has completed major rehabilitation to the South Jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River, marking the end of a decade-plus effort to restore the three jetties that protect one of the nation’s busiest trade corridors. Work on the $171.3 million South Jetty wrapped up in August 2025 after six construction seasons.

The Trump administration released draft plans that could strip away protections for the greater sage grouse on about 50 million acres of public lands across the West. The Obama- and Biden-era greater sage grouse proposals were intended to prevent the extinction of the iconic dancing bird.

Northern Arizona University and University of California Berkeley scientists working along the region’s California’s Eel River have discovered a micro-scale nutrient factory that keeps rivers healthy and allows salmon to thrive.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, has issued a five-year construction license to the Benton Conservation District for the Amon Creek Habitat Restoration Project, a $1.2 million initiative aimed at improving fish habitat and migration conditions at the Yakima Delta Habitat Management Unit near McNary Lock and Dam.

From corn chips to tofu, climate change is messing with the menu.

With what may have been the last round of federal funding support, a research team gathered offshore monitoring data throughout Puget Sound once more this summer.

Following a “thorough review of the best available scientific and commercial information,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it has determined that listing the Northern California-Southern Oregon distinct population segment of fisher under the Endangered Species Act is not warranted.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins this week announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken the next step in the rulemaking process for rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule by opening a public comment period.

This summer, Idaho Fish and Game biologists are testing whether trail cameras can help estimate the number of black bears in one of the state’s most popular bear hunting areas, Unit 32A.

Idaho’s wolves will remain under state authority despite a judge’s recent decision that calls for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider a previous determination that relisting wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming under the Endangered Species Act was not warranted.

So-called “100-year weather events” now seem almost commonplace as floods, storms and fires continue to set new standards for largest, strongest and most destructive. But to categorize weather as a true 100-year event, there must be just a 1% chance of it occurring in any given year. The trouble is that researchers don’t always know whether the weather aligns with the current climate or defies the odds.

Pollinators like honey bees require healthy food to survive and thrive. To learn more about the pollen they gather and the nutrients within it, Washington State University is leading a new endeavor dubbed the Pacific Northwest Pollen Atlas.

A federal judge in Oregon last week confirmed the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s legal duty to consider preventative measures — rather than a “spray first, ask questions later” approach — in its program allowing insecticide spraying to kill native grasshoppers and crickets on millions of acres in 17 western states.

A collaborative research and outreach effort led by Oregon State University to protect whales and sustain Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab fishery has been recognized as one of four regional winners of the 2025 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award.

More than 7,000 Chinook salmon are expected to return to Whatcom Creek in downtown Bellingham, Washington this season thanks to an ongoing collaboration between Bellingham Technical College, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, and the Lummi Nation and Nooksack Indian Tribe.

For many reasons, 2023 was the “Holy Grail Year” for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ pallid sturgeon recovery efforts in the Yellowstone River drainage. That’s fisheries manager Mike Backes’ term for it. Fisheries crews were able to validate the spawning of two wild heritage females with a wild heritage male and an unknown male in the Tongue River after capturing larvae that matched the parental genetics from three of the fish.

At July’s Northwest Power and Council meeting in Portland, staff from the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee discussed a new 10-year outlook they’ve produced showing regional utilities’ forecasted electricity demand and planned resources.

The Bonneville Power Administration says its third quarter financial report indicates the agency’s fiscal position remains positive. Despite seeing some decline in positive net revenues and end-of-year days cash on hand since the second quarter forecast, the agency “continues to see encouraging key performance indicators for its finances.”

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced the next round of Wildlife Diversity Grant recipients, awarding approximately $1 million in funding for the next two years. This investment supports eight collaborative projects focused on some of Washington’s most at-risk wildlife species.

The Colville Tribes and the Tribes’ project partners, the Spokane Tribe and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, have been reintroducing Chinook salmon to the waters upstream of Grand Coulee Dam since 2017. On July 8th, a juvenile Chinook salmon was caught and photographed in the Kettle River, just downstream from Cascade Falls in British Columbia. It’s the first report of a Chinook in the Kettle River since the reintroduction began.

Sunflower sea stars are the largest sea stars in the world — they have up to 24 arms and grow to the size of a bicycle tire. Starting in 2013, these creatures and other sea star species along the west coast of North America died in epidemic proportions.

The deadly, record-breaking heat wave that hit the Pacific Northwest in June 2021 continues to be the subject of intense interest among scientists, policy makers and the public. A new study from some of the region’s top climate scientists synthesized more than 70 publications addressing the causes and consequences of the extreme heat wave and the potential for similar high-heat events to happen in the future.

Extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States. In a new study published in Nature Communications, scientists found a link between the long-lasting 2023 heatwave over the southwest US and Mexico and the record warm sea surface temperatures in both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.

A federal district court in Missoula has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that gray wolves in the western U.S. do not warrant federal protections. The ruling means that the Service’s finding that gray wolves in the West do not qualify for listing is vacated and sent back to the agency for a new decision, consistent with the ESA and best available science.

A major installation project is underway at Montana’s Libby Dam to add flexibility to project operations and improve the dam’s overall electrical reliability.

The Bonneville Power Administration say it is “strategically raising power and transmission rates to meet customer needs and support national priorities for more abundant, reliable and secure energy.”

Leadership of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Coquille Indian Tribe came together near the mouth of the Coquille River last month to announce a major step forward in the combined management effort on salmon recovery.

The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the Trump administration for “delaying critically needed Endangered Species Act protections” for the Crater Lake newt. The newts live only in Oregon’s Crater Lake, and their population has crashed to as few as 13 animals in recent years because of the introduction of signal crayfish and warming lake temperatures from climate change, says the Center.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has confirmed the detection of a non-native brown trout in the Flathead River upstream of Pressentine Fishing Access Site near Evergreen, and anglers are encouraged to submit any additional brown trout caught within the drainage.

Recent results from white sturgeon monitoring surveys by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife suggest the white sturgeon population has continued to decline. CDFW fisheries biologists now estimate there are approximately 6,500 white sturgeon between 40-60 inches long in California — down sharply from the previous estimate of approximately 30,000 fish in that size range, based on the 2016-2021 survey average.

Clear-cutting can make catastrophic floods 18 times more frequent with effects lasting more than 40 years, according to a new University of British Columbia study.

Aaron Goettsche is no stranger to monster Lake Trout. An avid angler, fishing rod maker, and longtime veteran on Utah’s/Wyoming’s famous Flaming Gorge Reservoir – a world-renowned fishery known for producing Lake Trout over 30 pounds and occasional giants up to 60 – Aaron knows what a trophy looks like.

A California man was sentenced on July 14 to 3 years in state prison for kicking and clubbing a stranded California sea lion, with a 4-foot-long piece of driftwood. The incident took place near the Ventura Pier in Ventura, California.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has hired Peter Cogswell as its new executive director. Cogswell’s first day at the Council will be Monday, July 7th.

Cultivated salmon is now being served at Kann, a Haitian restaurant in Portland, Oregon, led by the culinary talents of James Beard award-winning Chef Gregory Gourdet. This milestone marks the very first for cultivated seafood anywhere in the world, signaling meaningful progress in bringing cultivated meat and seafood from pilot facilities into real-world kitchens.

A new report, co-authored by Washington State University conservation biologist Cheryl Schultz, provides a roadmap for recovering butterfly populations across the U.S.

Lookingglass Creek, a tributary to northeast Oregon’s Grande Ronde River at Palmer Junction, opened for spring Chinook fishing from Wednesday, June 18 through Sunday, June 29. The open area is from the mouth upstream to the confluence of Jarboe Creek.

During the last ice age, storms soaked the now-arid Southwestern U.S., while today’s rainy Pacific Northwest remained relatively dry. As global temperatures rose and ice sheets retreated, those storms shifted north—reshaping the climate patterns that define both regions today.

A new University of Washington–led study projects that in the next 35 years increasing boreal fires will actually slow global warming by 12% globally and 38% in the Arctic. Because the aerosols in smoke reflect more sunlight and make clouds brighter, summer temperatures during fire season drop, leading to reduced sea ice loss and cooler winter temperatures.

Across the western U.S., wildfires are becoming larger and more severe — and even trees that initially survive are dying in subsequent years, making it harder for forests to regenerate, according to new research from Portland State University.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that it is launching a summer strike team in partnership with federal and local agencies to combat livestock depredations by gray wolves in Siskiyou County and the Sierra Valley (spanning both Sierra and Plumas counties).

Riley Farden of New Plymouth was bow fishing for carp on the Snake River when he shot an arrow that not only hit its mark, it set a new state record for grass carp.

Montana Wild Wings Recovery Center in Kalispell has treated six bald eagles and one golden eagle with elevated lead levels in 2025.

New research strongly suggests policymakers should view outdoor recreation spaces not as luxuries but as essential public health infrastructure.

Reaction was swift over President Trump’s decision to terminate the federal government’s “Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement,” with parties both condemning and celebrating the move.