The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lost 18% of its staff under the Trump administration, dropping from 9,957 to 8,179, nationwide between 2024 and the end of May. The reduction in biologists and other staffers was discovered in data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Biological Diversity.

A 2022 rule by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission that allows trap, haul and trucking of fish over barriers, in addition to the already allowed volitional passage for fish, was overturned by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

A federal court ruled this week that the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service broke multiple environmental laws in approving the Knotty Pine logging project in the Kootenai National Forest. The proposed project is deep in the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear recovery zone of northwest Montana.

In response to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and Bird Alliance of Oregon, a federal judge found that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2022 determination that the streaked horned lark is threatened and not endangered is unlawful. The court ordered the Service to reconsider within one year whether the lark warrants endangered species protections.

A federal judge in Oregon last week confirmed the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s legal duty to consider preventative measures — rather than a “spray first, ask questions later” approach — in its program allowing insecticide spraying to kill native grasshoppers and crickets on millions of acres in 17 western states.

Plaintiffs in litigation that challenged the U.S. government over a biological opinion and environmental impact statement for the operations of Columbia and Snake river dams and their impacts on salmon and steelhead have returned to court.

Oregon’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle (D-OR) introduced the Columbia River Clean-Up Act to reauthorize the Columbia River Basin Restoration Program.