Twenty-five existing research-focused projects were approved for new Bonneville Power Administration fish and wildlife funding by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting this week.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee approved 25 research-focused projects, recommending that the full Council at its December meeting approve $11.6 million to continue funding the projects.

Seven new Pacific lamprey conservation and restoration projects were sent to the Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Council for final approval in December. Three lamprey projects were completed in fiscal year 2018 and the seven new projects were approved by the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee at its meeting Nov. 13 in Portland.

A report by the Independent Science Review Panel that reviews 25 research-focused projects that touch on fish and wildlife populations, habitat and the effectiveness of restoration actions and fish propagation, and the effectiveness of hatchery supplementation, was released by the ISRP Sept. 28 and was out for review until Oct. 24.

Northern pike is a fish that is broadly distributed across the northern hemisphere, but is not native to the Pacific Northwest, and it remains unwanted.

Its presence as low in the Columbia River basin as Lake Roosevelt is now posing a threat to native fish downstream of Grand Coulee Dam in what many are calling the anadromous zone where salmon and steelhead fish spawn, rear and eventually migrate to and from the ocean.