The Center for Biological Diversity released an analysis that it says shows that a two-decade, state-led voluntary conservation agreement has not produced a measurable increase in the abundance of critically imperiled Arctic grayling in Montana’s Big Hole River.
Climate change is skewing the North Pacific storm track northwards quicker than current weather predictions have estimated, moving winds and rains closer to the arctic and leaving cooler and drier conditions in the Northwest, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature.
Oregon State University research into marine protected areas plays a crucial role in the historic “High Seas Treaty” that went into effect Jan. 17.
In the aftermath of historically severe wildfires in 2020, a study of Cascade Range watersheds found that stream vertebrates are doing surprising well, highlighted by flourishing fish populations.
Most Pacific Coast salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the federal Endangered Species Act have increased in abundance over a 25-year span, but most still remain far under their recovery goals, according to a recent study by NOAA Fisheries scientists.
Killer whales or orca have been observed hunting with Pacific white-sided dolphins in the waters off British Columbia, Canada and sharing fish scraps with them after making a kill, according to research published in Scientific Reports. The authors suggest that the findings represent the first documented recording of cooperative hunting between orca and dolphins.
Idaho Fish and Game has launched a new study to better understand largemouth bass populations in the eight Chain Lakes connected to Coeur d’Alene Lake. The project was developed through ongoing conversations and collaboration with local bass anglers and bass fishing groups.
In its update to a 2007 climate report, a team of scientists noted that the rate and magnitude of changes in temperature and hydrology in the Columbia River basin has amplified over the past two decades and those changes will impact salmon and steelhead.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife scientists are using environmental DNA (eDNA) to take an unprecedented look at what lives in the state’s rivers, with the goal of conducting a census of every major river and drainage in Washington over the next seven years.
During the annual salmon run last fall, University of Washington researchers pulled salmon DNA out of thin air and used it to estimate the number of fish that passed through the adjacent river. Aden Yincheong Ip, a UW research scientist of marine and environmental affairs, began formulating the driving hypothesis for the study while hiking on the Olympic Peninsula.
A new paper in Biology Methods and Protocols, published by Oxford University Press, finds that researchers can now distinguish wild from farmed salmon using “deep learning,” potentially greatly improving strategies for environmental protection.
Steller and California sea lions are known to take a big chunk of early migrating adult salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River, but a recent study has also found that Steller sea lions are eating more than 2 million young Chinook salmon along Washington’s northwest coastline.
Wild wolves living in Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Territory on BC’s central coast have learned to pull crab traps out of the ocean—behavior that represents the first documented case of potential tool use in the species, according to a new study.
A new study led by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Toxics Biological Observation System unit explores an unseen threat to the Pacific Northwest’s Chinook salmon -- chemical contamination.
One of the enduring ichthyological mysteries is how migratory fish know when it is time to move from their winter to summer habitats. The ability to tell when the seasons are changing is crucial for a wide range of major life events, including feeding and spawning, as well as migration.
For a century there have been just five places in the continental United States with year-round frozen peaks — all in Washington state. But newly published research documents that these ice-capped summits are changing — melting — faster than many thought possible.
New research from Simon Fraser University Biological Sciences researchers finds that Pacific salmon are facing escalating threats due to a lack of coordinated conservation policy and oversight.
A forest practices rule targeting small, non-fish bearing perennial streams in western Washington was approved by the state’s Forest Practices Board Nov. 12. The rule includes wider logging buffers and provides options to reduce warming in the streams that are generally found in higher elevations where the streams originate, but which feed larger streams that host trout, salmon and steelhead.
Earth is reflecting less sunlight, and absorbing more heat, than it did several decades ago. Global warming is advancing faster than climate models predicted, with observed temperatures exceeding projections in 2023 and 2024. These trends have scientists scrambling to understand why the atmosphere is letting more light in.
2024 was the hottest year on record and likely the hottest in at least 125,000 years, according to an annual report issued by an international coalition led by Oregon State University scientists.
The Arctic landscape during the Cretaceous Period may have been dominated by the dinosaurs, but the rivers and streams held something more familiar.
Two fault systems on North America’s West Coast – the Cascadia subduction zone and the San Andreas fault – may be synchronized, with earthquakes on one fault potentially triggering seismic events on the other, a new study found.
Before bear spray, encounters between people and bears often ended in bullets. That changed when graduate student Carrie Hunt developed the life-saving deterrent at the University of Montana in the 1980s.
For millennia, Indigenous people living in Alaska and Canada’s Yukon territory have relied on Chinook salmon. The large, fatty fish provide essential nutrients for Arctic living and have influenced traditions and languages across generations.
The Washington Department of Ecology issued an official rebuke of a draft report by the U.S. Department of Energy being used to justify the Trump Administration’s rollback of federal climate regulations. At the same time, Ecology also released a new analysis that details worsening local impacts now and in the future due to rising global emissions.
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