Has El Niño reached the West Coast?

You might think it has. After all, the ocean off Southern and Central California is unusually warm. But that is from a recent marine heatwave that predates the current El Niño. Much of the Pacific Coast is experiencing relatively normal conditions while still awaiting the impacts of what could be a very strong El Niño, says NOAA Fisheries.

Threatened Hood Canal summer-run chum salmon represent a bright spot in Pacific salmon recovery.
According to preliminary data from the Hood Canal Coordinating Council, average annual returns have nearly tripled since 2022. They’ve climbed from about 11,600 fish per year between 2018 and 2021 to roughly 32,600 between 2022 and 2025. That’s up from a low of less than 1,000 spawners in the early 1990s.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently completed its revised State Wildlife Action Plan (SWAP) , designed to guide fish, wildlife, and habitat conservation in Washington for the next decade. Last updated in 2015, the plan acts as a roadmap for proactive conservation actions that prevent the need to list species under protective regulations...

Beavers are widespread in estuaries and tidal wetlands in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, demonstrating that they are not restricted to rivers and streams, Gregory Hood at the Skagit River System Cooperative reports in the open access journal PLOS One.

NOAA Fisheries supports one of the most ambitious salmon restoration projects on Oregon’s coast: the Salmon SuperHwy. This partnership of more than a dozen organizations works across the Tillamook, Nestucca, and Sand Lake watersheds. It works to restore fish passage at dozens of stream barriers, such as failing road culverts and tide gates. When complete, salmon and steelhead will be able to access 180 miles of habitat that had been blocked for decades.
The benefits of the Salmon SuperHwy project and other coastal restoration work are not just theoretical. Threatened Oregon Coast coho salmon have experienced a dramatic rebound in recent years, says NOAA Fisheries.

A new study of the largest dam removal project in United States history on the Klamath River in Oregon and California offers new insight into a long-running water conflict by finding that farmers and conservation groups share priorities that may help guide decision-making on future river restoration projects. Researchers from Oregon State University found that...

NOAA Fisheries has announced up to $99 million in funding through the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund for conservation and recovery projects that support Pacific salmon. The funding, says a press release, “supports Administration priorities by improving habitat and other actions to increase the production of salmon and steelhead that contribute to U.S. fisheries. Stronger...

NOAA Fisheries scientists have found telltale changes in cool, highly productive water upwelling along the West Coast -- changes that can provide “an early warning system” signaling greater risk of humpback whales getting entangled in fishing gear.