The increased presence of sport-only winter steelhead and a continued scarcity of targeted Columbia River basin spring chinook salmon this week prompted the commercial fleet to "take the day off" to await better fishing conditions.
While Idaho's big game animals have enjoyed an extremely mild winter, record low snow pack and eventual spring runoff mean trouble for Idaho's migrating salmon and steelhead smolts.
Grant County Public Utility District, in coordination with upstream federal and PUD dam operators, began last week what is an early implementation of additional flow constraints at its Priest River hydro project in an attempt to protect emerging salmon fry along the Columbia River's Hanford Reach.
The Columbia River basin spring chinook salmon run has only just begun, but the few being caught in lower river fishers' nets are bringing high value.
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.
Commercial fishers in their first outing of the year saw hints of what is expected to be an overall spring chinook salmon return to the Columbia River of more than 370,000 adult 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.
Twenty-five locally developed subbasin management plans were adopted Thursday by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council as amendments to its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
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.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission Friday evening (Feb. 11) adopted a state wolf management plan, concluding nearly three years of public discussion and input to set the stage for state oversight of the species when they establish a breeding population in Oregon.
Biologists anticipate that the Columbia River Basin will enjoy another robust run of fall chinook salmon this year, fortified by what is anticipated to be the fourth-largest "upriver bright" return since 1964.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will have more flexibility in managing the commercial fishery for spring chinook salmon that gets under way later this month or in early March on the Columbia River following a relaxing of the state's policy incidental impacts on protected winter steelhead.
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.
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.
Conservation groups on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the federal government in an attempt to force protection for populations of coastal cutthroat trout that still remain in Oregon and Washington.
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.
Sport anglers attending a Wednesday public meeting told Washington officials that too many uncertainties remain, and recovery is too far in the future, to allow any increased commercial fishery impacts on lower Columbia River basin winter steelhead stocks that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Some sea lions are, quite simply, incorrigible, state and federal officials Thursday told a group of sport and commercial fishers who have become disgruntled about the pinnipeds' growing presence in the lower Columbia River and their voracious appetite for salmon and steelhead.
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.
A crowd of about 50 property owners, conservationists and tribal representatives gathered Tuesday to quiz NOAA Fisheries officials regarding its November proposal to designate some 29,000 stream miles in Idaho, Oregon and Washington as "critical habitat" for 13 salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act
In an effort to expand fishing opportunities for hatchery spring chinook, Washington and Oregon fish managers are seeking greater flexibility in determining limits on wild steelhead inadvertently caught during salmon fisheries in the Columbia River.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
