On Oct. 17 the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife was alerted by Oregon State Police that a young adult male cougar was on a dock at the Embarcadero Resort in Newport. ODFW staff immediately responded and assessed the scene with local law enforcement.
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a petition urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the Cascade red fox under the Endangered Species Act. The Washington state foxes are threatened by climate change, small population size and a host of other threats.
The National Veterinary Services Laboratories has confirmed Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in 1 of 5 pigs living on a small farm in central Oregon’s Crook County.
Pacific salmon are in decline across British Columbia and the Yukon, according to a new report from the Pacific Salmon Foundation. More than 70 per cent of salmon are below their long-term average of the 41 combinations of regions and species assessed.
There are more salmon in the North Pacific Ocean than at any time in the past 100 years, according to a study released this month. The increase is due to changes in the marine ecosystems caused by warming seas -- changes that mostly benefit pink salmon, industrial-scale hatchery production, and commercial fishing.
Tribal, federal, and state leaders gathered at the Tulalip Reservation earlier this month to celebrate $240 million in federal funding for tribal hatcheries. The Inflation Reduction Act investment will help 27 tribes from Northern California to Southeast Alaska meet maintenance and modernization needs of tribal Pacific salmon and steelhead hatcheries.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that steelhead fishing will open in select areas of the Upper Columbia this month. This marks the first time in nine years that anglers can enjoy fishing for hatchery steelhead in these waters.
New research from University of Montana underscores the critical role of genetic variation in the conservation of threatened fish species.
In response to a legal petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that the Crater Lake newt (also known as the Mazama newt) may qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation added an additional 1,073 acres to the Minam River Wildlife Area in northeast Oregon, expanding the protected acreage to 16,646. This collaborative effort, finalized last month, builds upon significant land acquisitions from 2021 and 2023.
Worried about invasive, destructive zebra mussels coming into the state, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is asking aquarium and pet store shoppers in North Bend and Stayton areas who may have purchased marimo moss ball products in the last six months to contact the agency.
The latest draft annual survival study by the Fish Passage Center confirms what the organization has found each year since 2019, that recovery of salmon and steelhead in the Snake River will not occur without breaching the four lower Snake River dams.
Harbor seals consume as many as a third of young steelhead smolts migrating out of the Nisqually River’s delta in southern Puget Sound, new research shows.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has finalized a drone use plan that authorizes staff to conduct pinniped research and management surveys in the state’s coastal and inland waters. Department staff and researchers will use drones to survey for seals and sea lions in the Department’s Southwest, Coastal, and North Puget Sound regions.
Twenty years of habitat improvements in the Columbia River estuary have yielded 80 projects and 11,100 acres of reconnected tidally influenced flood plain habitat, according to two presentations by estuary scientists at a recent Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting.
NOAA scientists have upgraded a crucial genetic reference tool for Chinook salmon conservation that allows researchers to pinpoint the river system individual fish come from, enabling more precise management and protection of threatened and endangered populations.
The Center for Biological Diversity has reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that puts the agency on the path to protecting imperiled fish and southern resident killer whales from toxic cyanide in Washington state’s waters.
A lawsuit contending that lower Columbia River hatcheries downstream of Bonneville Dam are a threat to wild salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act was settled in part last week.
Oregon and Washington opened the entire mainstem Columbia River to fall Chinook and coho salmon fishing from Buoy 10 to the Oregon and Washington state border last week. The change by the two-state Columbia River Compact came at its Sept. 18 hearing and was based on an increase in expected fall Chinook returns, as well as higher than average returns of coho.
The Idaho State Department of Agriculture announced this week the detection of a small number of quagga mussels in the Twin Falls area of the Snake River.
Some 22,038 Columbia River basin Pacific lamprey had been counted at Bonneville Dam’s fish ladders as of Sept. 22, one-half the 10-year average and only one-third the number that had passed the dam on this date last year.
The Bonneville Power Administration is funding the construction of a state-of-the-art steelhead kelt reconditioning facility in Julietta, Idaho aimed at restoring steelhead populations in the Clearwater River. The new facility will be built adjacent to Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery, which BPA funded in 2001, and is being constructed in partnership with Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and the Nez Perce tribe.
Scientists studied two populations of fish-eating killer whales -- the Southern Residents and the southern Alaska residents – to find out if these two populations different things and how their diets change throughout the year.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has completed the 5-year status review and a Species Status Assessment for bull trout in the lower 48 states, recommending no change to the current threatened listing status of the bull trout under the Endangered Species Act.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers earlier this month received a report of a human-river otter incident that occurred at the Bremerton Marina in Kitsap County.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
