The Oregon and Washington Departments of Fish and Wildlife have issued their annual joint report describing upcoming fall fisheries in the mainstem Columbia River. It includes a review of those fisheries that occurred in 2022 and expectations for 2023 fall fish runs.
Rates of Chinook salmon bycatch in the Pacific hake fishery rise during years when ocean temperatures are warmer, a signal that climate change and increased frequency of marine heatwaves could lead to higher bycatch rates, new research indicates.
As scientists around the world sound the alarm about record sea surface temperatures, a new experimental NOAA forecast system predicts that half of the global ocean may experience marine heatwave conditions by the end of summer.
New research led by the University of Washington uses data collected by coastal residents along beaches from central California to Alaska to understand how seabirds have fared in recent decades. The paper shows that persistent marine heat waves lead to massive seabird die-offs months later.
A new count of gray whales that migrate along the West Coast each year found a continued decline of this population. However, new clues suggest that population numbers may soon start to rebound.
The Department of the Interior has announced significant action to better facilitate species recovery by providing more flexibility for the introduction of threatened and endangered species to suitable habitats outside their historical ranges.
A new study of North American songbirds finds that birds can’t keep up with the earlier arrival of spring caused by climate change. As a result, they’re raising fewer young.
The Fisheries Biologist II provides support in planning, budgeting, implementation, management, and reporting for the District’s natural resource programs.
Southeast Alaska commercial trollers will begin fishing for Chinook salmon July 1 after a ruling by a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that reversed an early May decision in a Washington federal district court. That previous decision shut down the summer and winter fishery.
Republican U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, chairman of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries, held a field hearing Monday in Richland, Washington titled “The Northwest at risk: the environmentalist’s effort to destroy navigation, transportation, and access to reliable power.”
Oregon State University researchers estimate that gray whales feeding off the Oregon Coast consume up to 21 million microparticles per day, a finding informed in part by poop from the whales.
With a lower-than-expected return of summer Chinook to the Columbia River, Washington and Oregon will close the river downstream of Priest Rapids Dam to recreational angling for the fish July 1, bringing the summer season that began June 15 –and was to go to July 31 — to an abrupt end.
For the second year in a row, wolf numbers in Montana did again fall slightly in 2022, according to the 2022 Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Wolf Report.
Even with a declining water supply forecast, Lake Koocanusa that backs up behind Libby Dam is still slowly refilling and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is near certain it will reach a refill target by September required by a sturgeon-bull trout biological opinion, according to the Corps’ Leon Basdekas.
As the world warms, extreme weather events grow – and they also change. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that climate change is shifting snowfall to rainfall on mountains across the Northern Hemisphere. Those surges of liquid water bring a distinct set of dangers, including floods, landslides, and soil erosion.
In a recently published study, scientists investigating the endangered southern resident killer whales have made a noteworthy observation: the prevalence of skin disease within this population has shown a significant increase.
Specially designed gardens could reduce the amount of a salmon-killing toxic chemical associated with tires entering our waterways by more than 90 per cent, new research shows.
A three-year-old hatchery production program spread across Puget Sound and the Columbia and Snake rivers, designed specifically to provide more food for Southern Resident killer whales should remain in place, according to NOAA Fisheries in its most recent declaration in federal court.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries are proposing regulations the agencies say will restore protections for species, strengthen consultation and listing processes, and “reaffirm the central role science plays” in decisions that guide the protection and recovery of endangered and threatened wildlife.
More than $25 million was approved last week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council for non-recurring maintenance at hatcheries and for fish screen maintenance throughout the Columbia River basin in fiscal year 2024. The cost of maintenance projects at 13 hatcheries that totals $23,356,074 will be paid by excess revenue funds from the Bonneville Power Administration’s reserves distribution clause.
In a January letter, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council invited Oregon and Washington transportation agencies to meet jointly to discuss their mutual problem of double-crested cormorants on the Astoria-Megler Bridge that spans the Columbia River estuary at Astoria, OR.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal notice of its intent to sue the Oregon and California state transportation agencies for failing to consider fatal impacts to salmon from toxic tire pollution.
In a presentation to update the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the Yakama Nation says it will begin work at its existing spring Chinook salmon hatchery on southern Washington’s Klickitat River late summer this year, with construction extending out 18 months to March 2025.
The Ktunaxa, Secwépemc and Syilx Okanagan Nations and their members will benefit from new interim agreements that share revenue generated from the Columbia River Treaty.
In a settlement agreement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to reconsider whether West Coast fishers in northern California and southern Oregon warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act.
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