Northern California steelhead require continued protection as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, according to a recent 5-year review by NOAA Fisheries.
The 1.1 mile long North Cove beach is located along the north entrance to Willapa Bay in Pacific County and was once the fastest eroding ocean beach on the U.S. West Coast.
New research has connected warming ocean temperatures to higher Pacific salmon abundance in the Canadian Arctic, an indicator that climate change is creating new corridors for the fish to expand their range.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is designating 1.2 million acres of critical habitat in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon for the coastal distinct population segment of the Pacific marten, also known as the coastal or Humboldt marten.
A threatened run of wild steelhead thought to be at a high risk of extinction in 2017 is making what could be a dramatic comeback in Oregon’s Willamette River. The comeback is mostly due to better ocean conditions and fewer sea lions feeding on the fish at Willamette Falls, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife this week successfully completed the release of more than 2 million fall-run Chinook salmon smolts into the Klamath River.
The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Olympic National Park, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that a tribal ceremonial and subsistence fishery for coho salmon on the Elwha River will be open for a limited time during fall 2024.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the ocean off the coast of Los Angeles was a dumping ground for the nation’s largest manufacturer of the pesticide DDT – a chemical now known to harm humans and wildlife. Due to the stubborn chemistry of DDT and its toxic breakdown products, this pollution continues to plague L.A.’s coastal waters more than half a century later.
Nearly $5 million to move forward on the removal of northeast Washington’s Enloe Dam is included in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announcement that 29 states will receive just over $70 million to support 43 projects that will address outdated or obsolete dams, culverts, levees and other barriers fragmenting the nation’s rivers and streams. Another $8 million will go to projects in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.
American Rivers is leading a project team to remove the Kellogg Dam at the mouth of the Kellogg Creek, a tributary of the Lower Willamette River. The work will help threatened Upper Willamette River Chinook and steelhead, Lower Columbia River coho, and Pacific lamprey to access upstream spawning and rearing habitat for juveniles.
The status of southwest Washington salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act is generally stable, although none of these fish populations are close to meeting recovery goals, says a recent report by the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Researchers who created “family trees” for nearly 10,000 fish found that first-generation, wild-born descendants of hatchery-origin Chinook salmon in an Oregon river show improved fitness.
Well-placed woody debris in streams results in a two- to three-fold increase of juvenile salmon, according to a recently completed review.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says that a report by a new group that recently asserted the four lower Snake River dams are a major source of greenhouse gases, particularly methane gas, largely used emission figures from dams and reservoirs outside of the Columbia and Snake river basins.
A new report released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reveals wetlands – 95 percent of which are freshwater — covered less than 6 percent of the lower 48 states as of 2019 – which is half the area they covered since the 1780s. The report also identifies that loss rates have increased by 50 percent since 2009 and that without additional conservation actions taken to protect these ecosystems, wetland loss will likely continue, reducing ecosystem benefits for people and habitat for fish, wildlife and plants.
An estimated 1.4 million spring/summer Chinook salmon were lost after multiple dams were constructed on the upper Snake River, according to a loss assessment recently completed by the Upper Snake River Tribes Foundation.
Following a successful test blast, the Klamath River Renewal Corporation will proceed with the removal of the Copco No. 1 Dam, the second dam to be removed as a part of the Klamath dam removal project. The Copco No. 1 Dam, constructed in 1918 for the sole purpose of hydroelectric power generation, has blocked fish passage for over 100 years and is expected to be fully removed by the end of August.
The cold water rivers of Western Washington hold some of the last, best freshwater habitat for salmon and steelhead in the lower 48 states, and despite a warming climate, their high-elevation headwaters are predicted to remain cool enough for salmon and steelhead for at least the next 50 years.
Oregon State University researchers are leading an effort to refine the design and expand use of oxygen monitoring sensors that can be deployed in fishing pots to relay critical information on changing ocean conditions to the fishing industry.
The Biden administration, along with the governors of Oregon and Washington and leaders of four lower Columbia River tribes – the six sovereigns – formally signed an agreement last week that commits the federal government to as much as $1 billion to build infrastructure for eventual removal of four lower Snake River dams and to recover salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin.
Hatchery-reared salmon show genetic differences from wild populations in only a few generations, but those differences vary among hatcheries.
An important population of listed steelhead in Idaho’s Snake River basin has been getting the help it needs to boost its numbers – removal of barriers, increasing habitat complexity, fewer scouring spring flows and higher and more consistent summer streamflows.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of its intent to pursue legal action over the recent listing of wolverines as a threatened species.
Marine heat waves appear to trigger earlier reproduction, high mortality in early life stages and fewer surviving juvenile Pacific cod in the Gulf of Alaska, a new study from Oregon State University shows.
NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation is using $27 million under the Infrastructure Law to support four major projects aiming at boosting threatened salmon and steelhead in Oregon’s Willamette River watershed.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
