The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission last week adopted new sportfishing rules for the 2004-05 season that include a two-year moratorium on retaining any wild steelhead caught in state waters.
A petition requesting that Endangered Species Act protections be removed for the southern sea otter does not contain substantial information to warrant the delisting, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday (Feb. 6).
The petitioner proposed delisting the southern sea otter because of concerns that the species is depleting the Oregon salmon population.
The Columbia River Compact on Thursday agreed to a plan that it thinks will maximize sport and commercial access in the coming months to the hatchery-reared portion of what is expected to be the second largest return of spring chinook salmon to the Columbia River on record.
In the four weeks since a cougar killed one cyclist and attacked another in California, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has continued to pursue an aggressive strategy to reduce human conflicts with the Evergreen State's own population of big cats.
The Bureau of Reclamation and Idaho Department of Fish and Game have jointly decided to discontinue operational changes at Lake Cascade in central Idaho which called for draining the reservoir next year.
Further study indicated that such an action could have significant negative impacts on flows for endangered and threatened salmon.
State, federal and tribal scientists are ready to take the first step in an effort to collaborate in the development of the technical underpinnings for NOAA Fisheries' next assessment of whether the survival of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead is threatened by federal hydrosystem operations.
Administration officials visiting the Columbia River basin last week took the time to visit what they say is a shining example of the federal/local cooperation they feel necessary to hasten the recovery of salmon and steelhead stocks.
President Bush submitted a 2005 environmental budget this week that the Administration says includes the highest level of funding ever requested by a President for high-priority environment and natural resource programs.
Following the direction of the Washington and Oregon fish and wildlife commissions, the directors of the states' fish and wildlife departments Friday (Jan. 30) announced that sport anglers in the Columbia River spring chinook fishery will be allowed 60 percent of the incidental impacts to upriver fish listed under the Endangered Species Act and commercial fishers will get 40 percent.
The Alaska Department of Fish is announcing that the Alaska statewide commercial salmon harvest is projected to increase during the 2004 season compared to 2003.
With the comment period over, a draft Artificial Production Review and Evaluation of some 3000 Columbia River basin programs moves on to a new phase -- the development of an issue paper that will likely include recommendations on needed reforms to the system.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is awarding 79 grants, totaling nearly $14 million, to help 60 federally recognized Indian tribes conserve and recover endangered, threatened and at-risk species and other wildlife on tribal lands.
Northwest tribes were awarded nearly $2 million in grants.
Wildlife biologists are scaling remote areas of the Cascade mountains to determine why Washington's population of mountain goats is declining.
The mountain goat research project is detailed with color photos in an updated version of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's online Fish and Wildlife Science magazine on the department's website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/science/index.html
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council was asked this week to restore nearly $900,000 in funding for conservation enforcement activities that tribal officials say bring big rewards in terms of reduced illegal take of salmon and steelhead.
NOAA Fisheries has released for public review its "Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (FPEIS) for Pacific Salmon Fisheries Management off the Coasts of Southeast Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, and in the Columbia River Basin."
The financial windfall could be as high as $77 million and the biological loss as high as an estimated 19,000 Columbia River basin adult fall chinook salmon on average annually if hydrosystem "spill" for fish passage is turned off in July and August, according to analysis released this week.
As the rewrite of the biological opinion on the Federal Columbia River Power System's impact on salmon and steelhead survival hit its halfway point, the judge that ordered the remand is keeping a careful eye on the success the federal government is having at implementing the current “BiOp.”
Upgrading railroads and grain elevators to accommodate grain shipments displaced from the Snake River if the four lower Snake River dams are removed could cost as little as $43.8 million -- a figure comparable to just one year's federal spending on operating and maintaining the four lower Snake River dams -- according to a study released Jan. 16 by conservationists.
The Nez Perce Tribe last week initiated a lawsuit against three federal agencies in an attempt stall a plan to harvest 42 million board feet of timber in north-central Idaho Lochsa River drainage.
It’s hard to tell which will occur first – the western migration of gray wolves from Idaho or Oregon’s development of a plan to manage the predators.
With as many as three dozen “new” wolves on Idaho’s western border, packs could be established in northeastern Oregon within the year, an expert told members of Oregon’s Wolf Advisory Committee, meeting in La Grande Jan. 12.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said today the process to delist the western population of gray wolves can begin once Wyoming approves key changes to state law and its wolf management plan.
At the same time, the FWS announced that wolf management plans developed by Idaho and Montana are adequate to maintain the population of gray wolves above established recovery goals.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission Friday (Jan. 9) adopted a framework that will guide the development of a Wolf Management Plan for Oregon .
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission Friday (Jan. 9) supported splitting the allowable impacts to wild fish during this year's Columbia River spring chinook fisheries 40-50 percent to the commercial fishery and 50-60 percent to the sport fishery.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife plans to release up to 30 bighorn sheep on its Chelan Butte Wildlife Area in Chelan County this winter to restore an historic population.
The Willard National Fish Hatchery near Cook, Washington, is releasing 974,000 coho salmon yearlings into the Little White Salmon River today (Tuesday, January 13).
These fish are being released three months prior to their planned April release schedule due to a significant decrease in the mitigation hatchery budget.
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