Chum Salmon Pass Bonneville Dam In Record Numbers, Operations Under Way To Ensure Redds Remain Watered Downstream
January 10th, 2025
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.
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Agencies Taking Another Look At 2020 EIS Detailing Impacts Of Columbia/Snake River Federal Hydrosystem On Imperiled Salmonids
December 22nd, 2024
Citing new information and changed circumstances, two federal agencies are reopening this week their 2020 final environmental impact study for operations at 14 Columbia/Snake river federal hydroelectric dams and are now seeking public input. The final EIS guides the dams’ impacts on salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Council Shows Total Salmon/Steelhead Return Numbers To Columbia River Through The Years Short Of Goal; ESA-Listed Fish Continue To Struggle
December 22nd, 2024
The average number of salmon and steelhead returning to the Columbia River each year has remained mostly constant over the last twenty years. While today’s returns of the fish have improved dramatically since the 1990s at a time when many of the species were being listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, today’s combined returns are still only half of the 2025 goal of 5 million fish set by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
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USFWS Releases Final Recovery Plan For Oregon Spotted Frog, Inhabits Small Portions Of Habitat From Canada To Southern Oregon
December 22nd, 2024
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has published a final recovery plan for the Oregon spotted frog, a threatened species living in the Pacific Northwest. The plan provides a road map to help recover the frog so it can thrive and ultimately be delisted from the Endangered Species Act.
USFWS Proposes To List Suckley’s Cuckoo Bumble Bee As Endangered; Once Broadly Distributed In West, Last Sighting In 2016
December 22nd, 2024
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is opening a 60-day public comment period on a proposed rule to list Suckley’s cuckoo bumble bee as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. This determination also serves as the 12-month finding on a petition to list the bee.
NOAA Status Review Of Four Northern California/Southern Oregon Salmon/Steelhead Species Says All Should Remain ESA-Listed
December 15th, 2024
NOAA Fisheries has completed 5-year status reviews of the recovery progress and prospects of four salmon and steelhead species in Northern California and Southern Oregon and found that all four should remain threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
USFWS Proposes ESA-Listing For Monarch Butterfly, Western Population Down 95 Percent Since 1980s
December 15th, 2024
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing protection for one of the nation’s most beloved species — the monarch butterfly — and is encouraging the public to be part of its recovery.
USFW Releases Final Recovery Plan, Proposed Critical Habitat Revisions For Canada Lynx, Listed Under ESA 24 Years Ago
December 9th, 2024
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it is taking two significant steps to support the conservation and recovery of the threatened Canada lynx population in the lower 48 states.
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Group Seeks ESA Protections For Two Snails In Southeast Oregon’s Owyhee River
December 9th, 2024
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed petitions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking Endangered Species Act protections for the Owyhee hot springsnail and Owyhee upland pyrg.
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Corps/Washington State Sign Agreement To Study Impacts Of Snake River Dam Breaching To Transportation, Recreation
November 18th, 2024
An agreement to study transportation and recreational services that would need mitigation if the four lower Snake River dams were breached to recover the river’s threatened salmon and steelhead was signed early last week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Washington’s Department of Transportation.
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Groundbreaking Research: First Time Cloned Endangered Species (Black-Footed Ferret) Produces Offspring
November 18th, 2024
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and conservation partners have announced a groundbreaking achievement in endangered species research: the first-ever birth of black-footed ferrets produced by a cloned endangered animal.
NOAA Awards $9.2 Million To Academic Cooperative Institutes For Pacific Salmon Recovery Science
November 18th, 2024
NOAA Fisheries has awarded more than $9.2 million in grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act to academic partners that will help recover threatened and endangered Pacific salmon.
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Pacific Salmon Foundation Report Shows Widespread Declines For Most Salmon In British Columbia, Yukon
October 18th, 2024
Pacific salmon are in decline across British Columbia and the Yukon, according to a new report from the Pacific Salmon Foundation. More than 70 per cent of salmon are below their long-term average of the 41 combinations of regions and species assessed.
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EIS Out For Public Comment On Hatchery Program To Increase Chinook Salmon For Southern Resident Killer Whales
October 8th, 2024
NOAA Fisheries is asking the public to weigh in on alternatives on how to fund a controversial hatchery-driven prey increase program that it says would provide 4- to 5-percent more Chinook salmon in Puget Sound for endangered Orcas.
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Corps Holds Information Sessions To Explain Willamette Dams’ Drawdowns To Aid Salmon, Steelhead
October 8th, 2024
Deep drawdowns at Green Peter and Lookout Point reservoirs to improve juvenile Chinook salmon and steelhead fish passage on the Willamette River will be explained at virtual public information sessions sponsored by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers.
In ESA Status Review USFWS Confirms Marbled Murrelet Remains Threatened, Loss Of Old Growth Habitat
September 13th, 2024
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a five-year status review for the marbled murrelet, a species of seabird that is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act from the Canadian border to central California.
WSU Study Finds That At-Risk Butterflies More Likely To Survive With Active Human Help, Some Declining At Rapid Rate
September 13th, 2024
Some of the butterflies most in danger of fluttering out of existence fare better when their habitats are actively managed by humans, a recent study found.
Hydropower Industry Sues Biden Administration Over ESA Administrative Rule Changes, Says Excess Of Authority
September 13th, 2024
The hydropower industry has filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court that challenges administrative changes to the federal Endangered Species Act made by Biden Administration agencies this spring that the industry says were made in “excess of the Services’ statutory jurisdiction and authority.”
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New Research Documents How Salish Sea Waters Too Noisy For Southern Resident Orcas To Hunt Salmon Successfully
September 13th, 2024
New research led by the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has revealed how underwater noise produced by humans may help explain the southern residents orcas’ plight.
Despite 20 Years Of Management Actions, Avian Predation Remains Substantial Source Of Columbia River Salmon, Steelhead Mortality
August 18th, 2024
As juvenile salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River basin migrate downstream to the ocean – mostly in the spring and summer – they run a gauntlet of avian predators. Birds are taking as much as 50 percent of these fish, with juvenile steelhead the hardest hit.
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Washington Updates Aquatic Life Toxics Criteria To Help Protect Salmon, Steelhead, Orcas
August 18th, 2024
The Washington Department of Ecology has developed changes to the state’s aquatic life toxics criteria the agency says are based on updated science and new research, new methods and modeling tools, and recommendations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Tribal governments.
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Grande Ronde Tribes Receive NOAA Funding To Improve Conditions For Imperiled Chinook, Steelhead On Willamette Valley’s North Santiam River
August 18th, 2024
The North Santiam River is a high priority for the recovery of threatened Upper Willamette River spring Chinook and winter steelhead. Large dams upriver impaired natural stream processes, decimating fish populations. Development, shoreline armoring, and the disconnection of floodplains from the river damaged habitat key for salmon spawning and rearing juvenile fish.
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USFWS Petitioned To List Under ESA Freshwater Snail Found Only In Oregon’s Lower Deschutes River
August 9th, 2024
The Center for Biological Diversity this week petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the banded juga — an imperiled freshwater snail in Oregon’s Deschutes River — under the Endangered Species Act.
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GUEST Column: Pacific killer whales are dying — new research shows why
December 11th, 2020
Killer whales are icons of the northeastern Pacific Ocean. They are intimately associated with the region’s natural history and First Nations communities. They are apex predators, with females living as long as 100 years old, and recognized as sentinels of ecosystem health — and some populations are currently threatened with extinction.