Hunting greater numbers of male deer can slow the spread of chronic wasting disease, a lethal wildlife disease, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
Two tugboats infested with quagga and zebra mussels were intercepted last month at the Spokane watercraft inspection station.
The tiny particles that shed from clothing, packaging and other plastic products are winding up in the fish that people eat, according to a new study from Portland State researchers, highlighting a need for technologies and strategies to reduce microfiber pollution entering the environment.
A drier than normal January is contributing to February’s lower Columbia River basin water supply forecasts for the months ahead.
Western Washington’s Olympic Peninsula summer and winter steelhead were found by NOAA Fisheries in November 2024 to be at moderate risk of extinction, but the federal agency has yet to list the fish as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, according to a new complaint filed Jan. 17 in federal court by The Conservation Angler and the Wild Fish Conservancy.
NOAA Fisheries scientists have completed a 4-month, roughly 4,500-nautical-mile, survey of marine mammals and seabirds off the U.S. West Coast.
Northern pike are moving through salt water to invade freshwater habitats in Southcentral Alaska, according to a new study.
A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that releasing hatchery-raised, non-native summer steelhead into the North and South Santiam rivers in the Willamette River system harms the river’s wild winter steelhead and violates the federal Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it could make hydroelectric dams on Oregon’s Willamette River safe for endangered salmon by building gigantic mechanical traps and hauling baby fish downstream in tanker trucks. The Corps started pressing forward over objections from fish advocates and power users who said the plan was costly and untested.
There is a new mouth to feed in the coastal waters of the Northwest where juvenile salmon first enter the ocean, and it’s a hungry one.
Although the snowpack in the western and southern portions of the Columbia River basin are higher than normal, other areas to the north and to the east are near- to lower-than-normal, and, as a result, January water supplies at key dams are being reported as below or slightly below normal.
A federal agency and a state agency have jointly completed a study on the impacts that breaching the four lower Snake River dams would have on water supplies and irrigation.
A December, 2023 agreement among six Northwest sovereigns and the U.S. government to restore Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead runs to “healthy and abundant levels” and touted by advocates as a collaborative effort to restore salmon runs in the basin, was questioned this week at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting in Portland.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has released a letter requesting recommendations from the region on how to amend its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, with submissions due by April 17.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has denied petitions to remove Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears, finding that the imperiled animals still need federal protection.
Expecting a slightly smaller run of eulachon (smelt) into the mainstem Columbia River this year than last year – about 8.6 million pounds – the two-state Columbia River Compact adopted a limited three-day-a-week commercial gillnet test fishery. The decision allows gillnetters using small mesh nets to fish for the threatened species in Zones 1 to 3 (roughly from the Astoria Megler Bridge to Puget Island).
Commercial net pen aquaculture was outlawed last week in Washington state, some seven years after a net pen collapsed, releasing thousands of Atlantic Salmon into Puget Sound, and two years after the last commercial net pens in the Sound lost their leases and were removed.
As of Jan. 1, 2025, boaters in Washington waters must stay 1,000 yards away from Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) at all times.
The new year came with both joy and sadness for endangered Southern Resident killer whales. Researchers first spotted J35, also known as Tahlequah, carrying her deceased calf off Alki Point in West Seattle on December 31. Tahlequah is the same whale that garnered international headlines and concern in 2018 when she carried another deceased newborn calf for 17 days.
The U.S. Department of Energy, Washington State Department of Ecology, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have finalized an agreement that outlines a course for cleaning up millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical waste from large, underground tanks at the Hanford Site near the Columbia River.
A record number of anglers fishing for white sturgeon in the Bonneville Dam pool shot through the harvest guideline of 675 fish in record time on New Year’s Day, resulting in the immediate closure of the pool to sturgeon retention. Catch and release angling for sturgeon will still be allowed.
A record number of threatened chum salmon passed Bonneville Dam late in 2024, with over 1,100 of the salmon passing the dam on their way upstream, the largest passage by chum at the dam since 1954. These are in addition to the chum that spawn annually downstream near the dam’s tailrace and are the subjects of an effort to restore the Columbia River run that at one time was near 1 million fish.
Fisheries managers this year are forecasting a spring Chinook salmon run into the upper Columbia River that is slightly higher than last year’s run, while predicting a slightly lower number of the Chinook than last year returning to the Snake River.
Oregon is becoming warmer and more prone to drought and will see less snow due to climate change, but people and businesses are also adapting to the challenges of a warming planet, the latest Oregon Climate Assessment indicates.
Floodplain restoration projects designed to improve instream habitat conditions for anadromous fish resulted in an increase in the numbers of juvenile salmon and steelhead, according to a recent study that examined segments of 17 habitat restoration projects in the Columbia River basin.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
