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.
A little more than a year after the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, California Department of Fish and Wildlife scientists are seeing salmon reoccupying just about every corner of their historic habitat.
The Bonneville Power Administration allowed the long-running Columbia Basin Fish Accords with tribes and states to expire Sept. 30, 2025 and it’s unclear if future agreements that would benefit salmon and steelhead recovery in the basin will materialize. Although BPA says it is open to discuss future Accords agreements with tribes, so far that has been more aspirational than substantive, at least according to one tribe.
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.
A draft evaluation of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Willamette River basin dams that includes analyses of a deeper drawdown at Detroit Dam and a cessation of hydropower is up for public review. However, in the draft the Corps’ preferred alternative maintains hydropower at the dams.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Walla Walla District, in partnership with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Yakama Nation, the Washington Department of Ecology, and the Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group has awarded a $1.2 million construction contract to PIPKIN INC. for the Bateman Island Causeway removal project.
The New Year’s Day opening of the popular recreational white sturgeon fishery in the Columbia River’s Bonneville and The Dalles Dam pools was nixed by Oregon and Washington at a joint state hearing last week. However, the sturgeon fishery in the John Day pool will open as normal for anglers, Jan. 1. The change in regulations begins in 2026.
The most recent filings in U.S. District Court in Portland by plaintiffs in the latest challenge to the biological opinion of the federal Columbia/Snake river hydropower system’s impacts on salmon and steelhead does not have to do with impacts by the federal dams, but instead it is a plea to dismiss a nearly two-year old counterclaim by the state of Idaho.
A team of scientists completed its sixteenth consecutive annual review of the Fish Passage Center’s draft Comparative Survival Study of salmon and steelhead that migrate past federal dams in the Columbia and Snake rivers.
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.
A new study led by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Toxics Biological Observation System unit explores an unseen threat to the Pacific Northwest’s Chinook salmon — chemical contamination.
How and where water bird predation impacts juvenile salmon and steelhead must be considered on a case- by-case basis before taking action against the birds, according to a new report being considered at this week’s Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting.
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.
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