Scientists have proven new miniature tagging and tracking technologies can follow the travels of small salmon through vast distances and highly dissimilar waters - from as far as the Rocky Mountain headwaters of the Columbia River through the ocean to the coast of Alaska.
A frantic fall and winter of construction lies ahead to prepare for the first outmigration of spring chinook salmon and steelhead from central Oregon's Crooked and Metolius rivers and the Deschutes' upper reaches since 1968.
A pair of environmental groups, one indigenous and the other not, have filed appeals challenging Washington state approval of a plan to tap as much as an additional 132,500 acre-feet of water from Lake Roosevelt each year to feed farms and municipalities and keep salmon afloat.
A federal appellate judge panel spent part of Monday morning playing devil's advocate, grilling attorneys about whether hatchery salmon and steelhead and their naturally spawned kin should be judged differently, or the same, and whether federal experts should be given deference to make such decisions.
Utilities and power consumers and fish and wildlife managers on Tuesday gave their view of the strengths and weaknesses of Northwest Power and Conservation Council's draft amendments to its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
As promised, numerous regional entities have officially requested that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reconsider its Sept. 18 decision to allow the siting of a liquid natural gas terminal near Astoria, Oregon, and the mouth of the Columbia River.
An association of irrigators this week released a memorandum that say Oregon's legal effort to discredit a plan for mitigating Columbia/Snake river hydrosystem effects on salmon and steelhead could also derail a mainstem harvest agreement between states, tribes and the federal government.
The Eugene Water & Electric Board this week signed an agreement with 16 federal and state natural resource agencies, Indian tribes, environmental groups and other parties outlining the environmental, recreational and other improvements EWEB will undertake for relicensing of its Carmen-Smith Hydroelectric Project on the upper McKenzie River.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council, with some reluctance, voted 7-1 Thursday to allow more time for the submittal of comments on its draft amendments to the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
A novel project that would remove hybridized westslope cutthroat trout from northwest Montana mountain lakes and replace them with pure local "cutts" has gotten the scientific go-ahead to complete final designs for retrofitting hatchery facilities.
Where there's a way there's the will to spawn -- as tule chinook salmon are proving in the gravels of southwest Washington's White Salmon River.
Researchers in recent weeks have identified about 69 salmon redds in reaches above the river's Condit Dam. The salmon eggs likely nested in those gravels are the first deposited above the dam in nearly 100 years.
Changes ranging from the replacement of existing water supplies, to shifting species emphasis to better localizing broodstocks are among the recommendations contained in a draft report on the operation of three federal hatcheries in Idaho's Clearwater and Salmon drainages.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature this week placed Pacific sockeye salmon on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The Red List is the international standard for measuring species' risk of extinction.
Northwest Energy Efficiency Taskforce workgroups last week presented preliminary recommendations aimed at addressing climate change concerns, growth in regional population along with rising energy consumption, and escalating costs for new power sources.
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Sockeye salmon are known to be hell-bent during their spawning journey up the Columbia and Snake rivers. And that rapid pace is apparently true for the young fish when they leave freshwater for their ocean sojourn.
An unexpectedly strong return of upriver bright chinook this year has allowed the opening of a fall chinook salmon sport fishery on the lower Snake River for the first time in 20 years.
The new federal plan to protect salmon and steelhead migrating through the Columbia/Snake river hydro system employs a "newly lowered bar" that fails to properly assess, in scientific or legal terms, the listed species' chances of recovery, according to motions for summary judgment filed in U.S. District Court Sept. 19 by a coalition of fishing and conservation groups and the state of Oregon.
NOAA's Fisheries Service, the federal agency charged with protecting salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act, is now seeking public comment on a proposed recovery plan for threatened steelhead in the middle Columbia River.
The Washington Department of Ecology on Thursday issued final decisions that pave the way for more water to be made available to cities and industry along the Columbia River and replace groundwater currently pumped from the Odessa Subarea aquifer.
Funding for a long-running habitat restoration project in Oregon's John Day River basin is on the ropes following a split vote last week by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
The Bonneville Power Administration expects to increase its "integrated" Columbia River basin fish and wildlife program spending by 55 percent during the fiscal years 2009-2011 period, agency officials told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday.
This year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program provided nearly $8.3 million to remove or bypass more than 168 barriers to fish passage.
Reaches of southwest Washington's White Salmon River devoid of salmon for 90 years should again be teeming with spawners this autumn.
An attempt to inject Clean Water Act claims into the long-running Columbia River basin salmon protection lawsuit should be rejected, according to a brief filed by federal attorneys Wednesday in Portland's U.S. District Court.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
