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.
A new genetic study found that heavy fishing in the early part of the fishing season may result in younger and smaller Atlantic salmon.
With a promised $200 million from the Bonneville Power Administration and nearly $100 million from other federal agencies and the state of Washington, Upper Columbia River tribes are moving into Phase II of a twenty-year effort to bring salmon back to blocked areas upstream of Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams.
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.
Oregon investigators found a cow carcass laced with poison in a creek in the Imnaha River drainage. The target was likely a wolf, the latest poisoning in a disturbing trend that has killed 19 wolves in Oregon since 2015. Whatever the target, the collateral damage in northeast Oregon’s ongoing poisoning cases now includes golden eagles, dogs, and other carnivores.
Due to a low May water supply forecast that is 5.129 million-acre feet (April – August), 84 percent of average, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s biological opinion for Kootenai River sturgeon allows a volume of 0.8 MAF to be used for augmenting spring sturgeon flows. Volume forecasts of 4.8 to 6 MAF puts this year’s operations into a Tier 2 category. A water supply forecast of less than 4.8 MAF would be Tier 1 and would allow no augmentation for sturgeon.
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.
A parasitic worm that can infest the brains of moose appears to be playing a role in the decline of the iconic animal in some regions of North America.
Two conservation groups followed up on their threat to sue in federal court against federal, state and local governments, saying that lower Columbia River hatcheries downstream of Bonneville Dam are a threat to wild salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
NOAA Fisheries denied a request by Alaskan Native communities for an emergency action requiring that no Chinook salmon be caught in the Bering Sea pollock fishery – a proposal that would basically cap the bycatch at zero and limit or close the largest fishery in the United States.
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.
Approximately 1 million young Chinook salmon have died at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Samish Hatchery near Burlington after a mechanical failure at 1 a.m. on Monday morning, April 29.
Washington’s wolf population grew for the 15th consecutive year in 2023, according to the Washington Gray Wolf Conservation and Management 2023 Annual Report released by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
With the fishery expected to have already met its allowable catch, recreational spring Chinook fishing on the Columbia River mainstem from Bonneville Dam to the Oregon/Washington border was closed Tuesday, April 30, by fishery managers from Washington and Oregon.
Nearly 18,000 young salmon died after a vandal poured bleach into a southern Oregon Coast fish hatchery tank last week, according to law enforcement authorities.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is seeking public input on a potential project that would place nearly 33,000 acres of private timberland in northwest Montana under a conservation easement and protect working lands, public recreation access, and wildlife habitat.
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.
Asotin Creek adult summer steelhead survival is at its lowest in the Bonneville Dam pool as the fish migrate upstream to the Snake River tributary, according to a presentation last week that focused on survival of steelhead listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. Temperature and harvest (catch and release mortalities) are cited as the main reasons for steelhead struggles in the Bonneville Pool.
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.
The minimum known count of wolves in Oregon at the end of 2023 was 178 wolves, according to the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management annual report released this week by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. This is the same number documented in 2022 and does not include 10 wolves translocated to Colorado in 2023 to help establish a wolf population there.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council acted unanimously to recommend closure of California’s commercial and recreational ocean salmon fisheries through the end of the year, mirroring recommendations made last year to close the fisheries in 2023.
The Center for Biological Diversity this week filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking Endangered Species Act protections for the ashy pebblesnail and shortface lanx.
Four conservation and animal protection groups have sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for denying their petition to protect gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains under the Endangered Species Act.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
