A vitamin deficiency likely killed as many as half of newly hatched fry of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River in 2020 and 2021. These new findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The eastern North Pacific population of gray whales that migrates along the West Coast of the United States has continued to decline, with reproduction remaining very low. Two new Technical Memorandums from NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center report the estimated population size and calf productivity in 2025.

Stretches of coasts and their rivers form enormous salmon nurseries for the exploring juveniles, the scientists said. The researchers documented coho salmon, steelhead, and cutthroat trout using coastal rivers separated by salt water, and suspect other species may do the same.

A recent study brings to light the dangers of a little-known life stage in which spring Chinook salmon in the Columbia River basin generally incur high mortality – incubation in the gravel.