At Bonneville Dam, a sea lion has actually found its way up into the fish ladders themselves in recent days, says Rock Peters of the Army Corps of Engineers' Portland District.
The Nez Perce Tribal Executive Council Tuesday (March 29) voted to accept the terms of the proposed settlement of the Tribe’s water right claims included in the Snake River Basin Adjudication.
A new strategy to assure protected salmon and salmon stocks are not jeopardized by the federal Columbia River Basin hydrosystem seeks to hide the real problems the fish face, rather than address them, according to fishing and conservation groups who want that plan reworked.
For the first time in nearly thirty years, anglers in Idaho may have the chance to fish for chinook salmon on the Upper Salmon River.
The goal of resurrecting tribal spring and summer/fall chinook salmon fisheries, and creating recreational opportunities, in Washington's Okanogan subbasin and other waters of the Colville Reservation moved into the realm of possibility Tuesday.
Conditional approval was given Tuesday for the expenditure of up to $268,000 for two "off-site" habitat projects that Bonneville Power Administration officials say will further federal agencies' goal of countering Columbia/Snake hydrosystem impacts on salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
A fight within a legal fight has emerged with one party claiming a federal Columbia River salmon protection plan puts too little blame on the hydrosystem while another faults the plan because it lumps too much responsibility for fish mortality on the dams' operations.
The findings from four years of research were released this week, offering recommendations on how Portland's Willamette River reaches might be made more hospitable for juvenile salmon and steelhead that dally there and grow as they make their way from the spawning grounds to the ocean.
With an ample supply of marine prey fish available, salmon consumption in the Columbia River estuary by the world's largest Caspian tern colony last spring and summer dropped to an all-time low since research on the birds' diet began in 1997.
Tribal representatives argued for a loosening of fish and wildlife funding purse strings during Tuesday's Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting while spokesmen for Northwest utility interests insisted that such costs should be held at current levels or pared back during the fiscal year 2007-2009 period.
Attorneys for fishing and conservation groups, the state of Oregon and tribes in Feb. 11 court documents detail why they feel a federal Columbia River salmon protection plan twists both the laws of the land and those of science in declaring that hydrosystem operations won't jeopardize the survival of 12 stocks of fish.
Despite continuing legal threats hovering in the background, federal "action" agencies have begun to push for rapid implementation of actions they say will raise salmon survival through the Columbia River hydrosystem, and beyond, and foreclose the possibility that certain of fish stocks will become extinct.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission Friday (Feb. 11) directed
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Lindsay Ball to manage
the incidental loss of wild steelhead to less than 2 percent of the run
during the Columbia River commercial spring chinook fishery.
President Bush’s proposed $2.57 trillion budget for Fiscal Year 2006, beginning Oct. 1, includes about $571 million for Columbia Basin salmon restoration efforts.
That’s a decrease of about 5 percent, from the $600 million approved by Congress and Bush for FY2005. Actual spending in FY2004 was $641 million.
Spending what is necessary to restore Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead runs would produce a $550 million annual economic boon, according to scenarios detailed in a report prepared by Boise economist Don Reading.
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and the state's Commissioner of Public Lands Doug Sutherland jointly signed an application to the federal government for a programmatic, statewide Habitat Conservation Plan, calling it a landmark step toward protecting Washington’s streams and forests.
Federal attorneys say a legal complaint seeking ouster of NOAA Fisheries' 2004 Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion provides a distorted view of the document itself and its biological and legal underpinnings.
Letters, e-mails and phone calls are flooding in to Oregon and Washington fish and wildlife commissions, in large part protesting a proposal to relax limits on the incidental take of protected wild winter steelhead during the commercial harvest of hatchery-produced spring chinook salmon in the lower Columbia River.
Fully implementing newly created subbasin goals and objectives over a 10-year span would require more than a doubling of the amount of money now being spent through the Columbia River Basin fish and wildlife plan, according to estimates compiled by a resource managers work group.
State scientists believe that Oregon coastal coho are on the road to meeting the restoration goals of the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds, Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s office announced this week.
Swelling numbers of non-native American shad in the Columbia/Snake river mainstem are likely having an impact on salmon, other fish species and the ecosystem generally, but little is known about the magnitude, or even the direction, of that change, according to a U.S. Geological Survey researcher.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today (Jan. 14) released a plan for dispersing two thirds of the world's largest Caspian tern colony from the mouth of the Columbia River to seven alternate sites in Washington, Oregon and California.
Bonneville Power Administrator Stephen Wright Friday (Jan. 7) signed a "Decision Document” which formally announces BPA's intent to implement the federal agencies' “Updated Proposed Action” analyzed in NOAA Fisheries’ 2004 Biological Opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power System.
The Fiscal Year 2005 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act signed by President Bush last month includes for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District about $152 million to fund work in the Columbia, Willamette, Rogue and Cowlitz river basins.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week put its official stamp of approval on a set of coordinated actions that it and other federal agencies say will insure that Federal Columbia River Power System operations "are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of twelve listed and one proposed anadromous species…."
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