NOAA Fisheries is nearing a determination of whether the Oregon Coast (OC) and Southern Oregon/Northern California Coastal (SONCC) Chinook salmon should be listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, saying the final determination is expected this spring.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Fisheries and Oceans Canada have signed an agreement regarding the recovery of Chinook salmon in the Yukon River drainage. The agreement is focused on rebuilding the stocks to a level that they can once again provide for subsistence, as well as sport, commercial, and personal use fishing opportunities.

The National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have published a final Environmental Impact Statement that identifies the preferred alternative to reintroduce grizzly bear into the North Cascades Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone, including North Cascades National Park.

Walleye, an invasive species with a reputation for a voracious appetite, has moved down the Columbia River from Lake Roosevelt and are now being counted in increasing numbers upstream of Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River, according to a report by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Fishery managers have developed options for Washington’s ocean salmon fisheries that reflect lower numbers of several coho salmon stocks predicted to return this year.

Montana’s first mussel-fouled watercraft of the year was intercepted at the Anaconda watercraft inspection station on March 10. 

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that fall-run Chinook salmon fry released for the first time from its Fall Creek Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County are presumed to have succumbed to gas bubble disease in the Klamath River.

Though agencies and partners have pulled together to support the recovery of endangered Sacramento winter-run Chinook salmon in the last few years, NOAA Fisheries says the species is still in trouble, facing threats from climate change and other factors.

Fisheries biologists are predicting that a smaller run of upriver spring Chinook salmon will return this year to the Columbia River than had returned last year, and that fewer of those fish will be of natural origin, continuing a years’ long trend, according to a report released last week by Oregon and Washington fish and wildlife agencies.

With another good run of ESA-listed smelt expected this year into the Columbia River and a few lower river tributaries, the two-state Columbia River Compact approved this week commercial research gillnetting for the small fish through mid-March.