The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and federal agencies start a new chapter in efforts to conserve and recover Kootenai River white sturgeon.
The chairs of four Columbia River basin tribes with treaty-reserved fishing rights this week sent a letter supporting continued operation of the Fish Passage Center to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
A fish species declared officially extinct in Washington's Okanogan River subbasin returned recently to provide table fare for tribal members’ first-salmon ceremony for the first time in four-score years.
The Umatilla Tribes on Thursday asked the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission to revise upward fish consumption rates that dictate the amount of toxic pollutants allowed to be discharged directly into Oregon rivers under the federal Clean Water Act.
Washington Gov. Gary Locke, Colville Tribal Chairman Joe Pakootas and state Fish and Wildlife Director Jeff Koenings this week signed an agreement that will allow the state to obtain intermittent releases of water from Lake Roosevelt, when needed, from April to August each year.
After several years of talk and negotiations, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is preparing to transfer the operations responsibility for its Klickitat River hatchery to the Yakama Indian Nation.
The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation and Douglas County Public Utility District have settled a longstanding dispute over tribal lands flooded by Wells Dam.
Northwest salmon fishing tribes gave higher marks this year to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for keeping pool fluctuations to a minimum at three lower Columbia River dam reservoirs during the eight weeks of treaty gillnet fishing between August and October.
Four Columbia River treaty tribes, with the aid of a federal grant, will explore the potential for siting a commercial fish processing center along the Columbia River with the goal of enhancing their share in the market place.
Columbia River tribes gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a passing grade on its ability this year to keep pool fluctuations to a minimum during its five periods of summer treaty fishing.
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.
Steady counts of summer chinook salmon at Bonneville Dam have given fishery officials the confidence to approve tribal commercial gill net fisheries in the mainstem Columbia River targeting the so-called "June hogs" for only the second summer since 1965.
Cattle have been removed, thousands of trees planted and the stream channel replaced so that 50 years after it was straightened, Bear Creak, located in the Upper Grand Ronde River subbasin, once again meanders through Longley Meadow.
Tribal gill net fishers targeted the tail end of the 2004 upriver spring chinook salmon run this week in a mainstem fishery approved Tuesday by the Columbia River Compact.
Washington and Oregon officials this week OK'd tribal commercial fishery that will target a dwindling stream of "upriver" spring chinook salmon in Columbia River mainstem reservoirs above Bonneville Dam.
For the second time this spring, tribes are fishing for spring chinook salmon in the lower Columbia River.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, on behalf of Northwest tribes, this week asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for special operations at lower Columbia River dams to aid tribal gillnetters while they fish.
As it has done in each of the past five years, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission offered up at this week's Technical Management Team meeting its version of how the Federal Columbia River Power System should be operated.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said Wednesday that tribal fishermen caught almost 126,000 fall chinook in nets and from platforms this fall, accounting for about one quarter of the fall chinook run this year that made it to Bonneville Dam.
A newfound consensus among Columbia Basin fish and wildlife managers
has paved the way for the funding of two tribal projects aimed at beefing
up enforcement of laws and regulations protecting spawning salmon and steelhead
and their habitat.
The Northwest Power Planning Council on Tuesday approved fiscal year
2000 funding for a $388,427 proposal from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal
Fish Commission and a $425,236 project offered by the Nez Perce Tribe.
The Council had balked at ...
Three of the four tribes with treaty-reserved fishing rights on the
Columbia River have asked the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
(CRITFC) to contract with the BIA to invest federal funds and use the interest
to operate and maintain Indian fishing-access sites on the Columbia River.
The Umatillas, Warm Springs, and Nez Perce Indians want CRITFC to contract
with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to assume the responsibility over operation
and maintenance of the "in-lieu" treaty ...
Two players in the Columbia Basin's salmon recovery effort have delivered
unsolicited, and unkind, reviews of the draft Anadromous Fish Appendix
prepared by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Comments offered by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Columbia
River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission criticize the document's contents and
many of its conclusions, as well as the process used to compile the information.
The document is intended as the biological appendix to the U.S. ...
An estimated $180 million in "unspent" capital investment
funds will be used to benefit fish and wildlife beyond the year 2001, not
redirected to fund other mitigation projects during the current budget
period as the chairmen for the four Lower Columbia treaty tribes had requested.
That's the conclusion offered to the tribes by Bonneville Power Administration
administrator Judith Johansen.
The chairmen of the four Lower Columbia treaty tribes in October asked
that ...
Northwest tribal leaders visited five fishing access sites currently
under construction and discussed design plans for several others Thursday
and today (April 23) during a conference with officials from the Army Corps
of Engineers.
The sites, authorized by Congress in 1988, are located along the Columbia
River between Bonneville and McNary dams.
The sites are solely for use by Native Americans who are members of
the four Columbia River treaty tribes - The Confederated Tribes of ...
In a tersely-worded letter to Northwest policymakers, the Columbia River
Inter-Tribal Fish Commission disagreed with a power operators' plan to
reduce stranding of emerging fall chinook fry at Hanford Reach on the Columbia
River and offered a plan of its own that it says will further reduce stranding
of the fish. The letter from Ted Strong, CRITFC executive director as of
March 31, to executives of federal, state and public utility agencies asked
for an "expedited policy ...
At the end of this month, Ted Strong will step down as executive director
of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. He will have served
in that position for 10 years, or nearly half of the organization's existence.
The following are excerpts from an interview published in the Yakama
Nation Review in which Strong discusses key issues related to salmon restoration.
(For the views for incoming CRITFC director Don Sampson, see CBB, March
1-5)
On Restoration and Declining ...
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
