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 Skamania fish hatchery on the Washougal River in Washington is shutting down due to budget cuts at the state’s fishery agency that have also resulted in layoffs and cuts in monitoring and fisheries management.
The state of Washington and Columbia River tribes are lining up in U.S. District Court to support a request for a preliminary injunction filed Oct. 14 by Earthjustice seeking emergency operational changes at federal Columbia and Snake river dams aimed at protecting endangered salmon and steelhead from harms caused by dam operations.
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.
The population of white sturgeon from Hells Canyon Dam to Lower Granite Dam is in decline, with fewer juvenile sturgeon found in both the 101 miles of free-flowing river and 36 miles of reservoir water. That decline began when the lower Snake River dams were completed, according to information provided by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at last week’s Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting.
For the third consecutive year, Idaho poisoned a section of the Snake River near Twin Falls to rid the river of dangerously invasive quagga mussels first found in 2023.
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.
Although no chum salmon have showed up yet at spawning grounds downstream of Bonneville Dam, fishery managers and dam operators agreed this week to a phased-in beginning for chum flows as a way to save Lake Roosevelt water for spring flow augmentation and to protect resident fish in the lake.
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.
In addition to continuing tribal commercial gillnetting upstream of Bonneville Dam that is currently targeting the fourth largest run of coho salmon in the last 10 years, tribes also received approval this week from the two-state Columbia River Compact for a little-known fishery that commercially removes from the John Day Dam pool non-native fish that prey on salmon and steelhead.
In a wild two weeks in the U.S. District Court in Portland, federal government attorneys asked the court on Oct. 2 to put a hold on renewed litigation that challenges federal environmental impact statements and biological opinions regarding the impact of operations of Columbia and Snake river federal dams on imperiled salmon and steelhead. The hold in litigation, they said, is due to the government shutdown.
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.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
