A Northwest Power and Conservation Council issue paper on Columbia River basin hatchery management was sent out this week in search of answers about how artificial production should be used in the future to meet both harvest and conservation needs.
Tribal gill netters ventured out on the mainstem Columbia in pursuit of "summer" chinook salmon and sockeye this week and next despite the recognition that their harvest to-date has already far surpassed their allowed "impact" on the Snake River-bound portion of the chinook run.
An agreement among 22 organizations that took 19 months of negotiations will result in the reintroduction of threatened summer steelhead and spring chinook salmon to 226 miles of habitat upstream of the Pelton/Round Butte complex of dams on the Deschutes River.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision this week to reduce summer spill as a means of fish passage at Columbia/Snake river hydroelectric projects in August is been followed, as promised, by a flurry of legal activity aimed at reversing the decision.
A newly revised forecast says that the 2004 sockeye return to the mouth of the Columbia River will total 119,000 fish -- the largest return 17 years.
The modified summer spill program proposed by the Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on June 24 received NOAA Fisheries approval last week in a July 1 findings letter.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it is extending the deadline for comments on its 5-year review of bull trout, which are protected as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have negotiated a Draft Annual Funding Agreement for the National Bison Range Complex in Moeise, Montana.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday signed off on three "habitat conservation plans" that two Mid-Columbia public utilities say provide the highest level of fish protection ever established for a hydropower system while still providing certainty for continued hydroelectric generation.
Claiming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has illegally denied Endangered Species Act protection for Columbia River and southwestern Washington populations of the coastal cutthroat trout under the Endangered Species Act, conservation groups this week filed a formal 60-day notice of intent to sue the agency.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today (June 23) it
will euthanize approximately 50,000 rainbow trout being held at Leaburg
Hatchery during the next few days because they have contracted or been
exposed to an incurable disease. Healthy fish will be released ahead of
schedule to prevent them from also contracting the infection.
The “Status of Fisheries of the United States” report, released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), shows progress was made in 2003 to address excessive fishing rates and rebuild fish stocks to healthy levels.
The number of sea lions and other pinnipeds making the 140-mile journey from Pacific Ocean to the base of Bonneville Dam seems to have leveled off this spring after having more than tripled from 2002 to 2003
That leveling occurred, however, at a high number relative to the past.
The Columbia River Compact on Monday approved a proposal that will allow, beginning Thursday, June 17, tribal platform and hook-and-line fishers to sell chinook salmon and steelhead caught in the Columbia River mainstem reservoirs between Bonneville and McNary dams.
The salmon stock that has literally been at the eye of biological and political storms over the past several years -- the Oregon coastal coho -- is officially off the Endangered Species Act list.
The Nez Perce Tribe, saying that keeping subyearling chinook one extra year in the Lyons Ferry hatchery is unlawful, filed suit Monday (June 14) in Federal District Court in Portland to order the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to release the fish this year.
Columbia River sport and commercial fishers harvested more than 64,000 spring chinook salmon this year – one of the better catches in recent decades -- despite the fact that the upriver spawning run did not return in the numbers that fishery officials had anticipated.
Citing a potential federal-court violation, leaders of four Columbia River treaty tribes this week denounced the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' revised proposal to reduce summer spill at Columbia/Snake river dams.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told this week by its staff that it would take $145 million in spending during fiscal year 2005 to fund fish and wildlife projects and research at levels the panel recommended over the past few years during its provincial review process.
The Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unveiled at a press conference Tuesday (June 8) an amended proposal that will cut spill this summer at lower Snake River and Columbia River dams.
The offspring of spring chinook salmon planted in 2000 have returned to the Walla Walla River as 10-15-pound four-year-old adults.
The returns are the result of the supplementation and habitat improvement program of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the cooperative efforts of the Tribes, states and the Walla Walla Watershed Council, landowners, local irrigators and others.
River flows from Libby Dam ramped up Saturday, May 29, from 4,000 cubic feet per second to 13 kcfs after two female endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon had quickly turned downstream in the Canyon reach of the river. Several male fish also were present.
For the first time in eight years, anglers can legally fish for bull trout
in Lake Koocanusa, Hungry Horse Reservoir, and the South Fork Flathead
River.
An advisory committee of Oregon marine scientists has reviewed a recent report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy at the request of Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, and strongly endorsed some of the key findings of that study – the oceans are in serious trouble, major changes are needed and current ocean policies do not reflect existing science and sound management principles.
The Upper Columbia steelhead "evolutionarily significant unit" is proposed for downlisting from endangered to threatened and the Lower Columbia River coho salmon should be given protection under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA Fisheries announced today (May 28).
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