Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is seeking public input on a potential project that would place nearly 53,000 acres of private timberland in northwest Montana under a conservation easement and protect working lands, public recreation access, and wildlife habitat.

The Pacific Salmon Commission’s Northern and Southern Funds have selected 83 projects to receive a total of $9.5M USD in funding for 2025.

Forecasted returns of salmon and steelhead to the Columbia River this year are showing small changes in run size from the returns of 2024, with the exceptions of sockeye salmon with a run size predicted to drop by more than 50 percent of 2024’s record run and wild winter steelhead forecasted to drop 31 percent, according to an annual staff report by Oregon, Washington and Tribal fish and wildlife agencies.

As part of statewide efforts to help Californians and wildlife recover from the Southern California fires, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and its partners last month rescued 271 endangered Southern California steelhead trout from Topanga Creek, the last known population of this species in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Two tugboats infested with quagga and zebra mussels were intercepted last month at the Spokane watercraft inspection station.

Expecting a slightly smaller run of eulachon (smelt) into the mainstem Columbia River this year than last year – about 8.6 million pounds – the two-state Columbia River Compact adopted a limited three-day-a-week commercial gillnet test fishery. The decision allows gillnetters using small mesh nets to fish for the threatened species in Zones 1 to 3 (roughly from the Astoria Megler Bridge to Puget Island).

As of Jan. 1, 2025, boaters in Washington waters must stay 1,000 yards away from Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) at all times. 

A record number of threatened chum salmon passed Bonneville Dam late in 2024, with over 1,100 of the salmon passing the dam on their way upstream, the largest passage by chum at the dam since 1954. These are in addition to the chum that spawn annually downstream near the dam’s tailrace and are the subjects of an effort to restore the Columbia River run that at one time was near 1 million fish.

In early 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to delist some populations of grizzly bears in the U.S. Northern Rockies. As Montanans consider their future with grizzly bears, University of Montana scientists are helping inform the social, ecological and policy aspects of the dialogue.