The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a five-year status review for the marbled murrelet, a species of seabird that is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act from the Canadian border to central California.
The Payette National Forest released a Final Environmental Impact Statement and Draft Record of Decision for a controversial gold mine located in the headwaters of Idaho’s Salmon River. The draft documents will undergo a 45-day public review for what the U.S. Forest Service is calling a “pre-decisional objection period.”
Competition with millions of pink salmon in the North Pacific Ocean, which are known for their two-year cycle of abundance, is resulting in shorter steelhead returning to the Snake River – also on a two-year cycle, according to a recent study.
The hydropower industry has filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court that challenges administrative changes to the federal Endangered Species Act made by Biden Administration agencies this spring that the industry says were made in “excess of the Services’ statutory jurisdiction and authority.”
Oregon and Washington added more fishing days on the mainstem Columbia River and expanded the bag limit to three salmon for the Buoy 10 fishery at a hearing this week after a prediction of higher than previously forecasted returns of salmon and steelhead.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has released the “Klamath River Anadromous Fishery Reintroduction and Restoration Monitoring Plan,” a 60-page blueprint to guide the reintroduction and monitoring of Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey in a newly undammed Klamath River.
New research led by the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has revealed how underwater noise produced by humans may help explain the southern residents orcas’ plight.
A new study co-authored by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks helps to identify where in the Bitterroot Ecosystem grizzly bears could call home through reintroduction or recolonization.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and research partners documented white-nose syndrome and the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome in eleven new counties in 2024.
The Bureau of Reclamation and partners of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan completed a new fish passage facility at the Cle Elum Dam in July that will allow juvenile sockeye salmon to naturally pass downstream. Once all parts of the Integrated Plan are in place, annual adult sockeye returns to the Cle Elum River are projected to rise from 20,000 fish to 100,000 fish.
Oregon U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden announced that the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission is set to receive a $794,000 federal grant from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to support their salmon recovery work and strengthen underserved communities impacted by climate change in the Columbia River Estuary.
NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation is investing $9.5 million through the Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act to restore salmon habitat for South Fork Nooksack River Spring Chinook. Projects led by the Lummi Nation and Nooksack Indian Tribe will install engineered log jams in the river.
Oregon State University researchers are part of a team looking at reducing bird collision risks with wind turbines by painting a single blade of the turbine black.
The Center for Biological Diversity this week petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the highly imperiled Alvord chub under the Endangered Species Act.
The state of Idaho has shifted from an aggressive rapid response – the emergency eradication of quagga mussels found in the mid-Snake River near Twin Falls last year -- to prevention and containment, according to Nic Zurfluh, Invasive Species Bureau Chief at the Idaho State Department of Agriculture. The incident was the first time invasive, destructive mussels were verified in the Columbia River basin.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife received notification last week from a local wholesale aquarium company in Renton of possible invasive freshwater mussels on a shipment of Marimo moss balls. Moss balls are a commonly used decorative algae in aquariums and water gardens.
As juvenile salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin migrate downstream to the ocean – mostly in the spring and summer – they run a gauntlet of avian predators. Birds are taking as much as 50 percent of these fish, with juvenile steelhead the hardest hit.
The Washington Department of Ecology has developed changes to the state’s aquatic life toxics criteria the agency says are based on updated science and new research, new methods and modeling tools, and recommendations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Tribal governments.
The Department of the Interior announced this week the establishment of the Willamette Valley Conservation Area in Oregon as the 572nd unit of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-managed National Wildlife Refuge System.
Idaho Fish and Game recently received test results confirming a positive case of chronic wasting disease in an adult female white-tailed deer roughly 3 miles outside of Bonners Ferry in hunting Unit 1. The deer was reported to Fish and Game by a landowner who found the dead deer in early July.
The Center for Biological Diversity this week petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the banded juga — an imperiled freshwater snail in Oregon’s Deschutes River — under the Endangered Species Act.
Idaho Fish and Game reported last week a mortality event that resulted in about 33,000 young Chinook dying at the McCall Fish Hatchery in late July.
Idaho Fish and Game researchers have developed a new genetics-based method of estimating the state’s wolf population. The method uses genetic and age information taken from every harvested wolf checked by Fish and Game.
It’s a phenomenal year for sockeye salmon in Central Washington, with record numbers of fish making their way upriver. Through July 31, an astounding 165,071 sockeye have been counted at Tumwater Dam on the Wenatchee River.
The Department of Commerce and NOAA have announced more than $105 million in recommended funding for 14 new and continuing salmon recovery projects and programs.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
