U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ officials have declared the log-boom breach at the Clark Fork Drift Facility an emergency and are warning boaters to watch out for logs and other floating debris on Lake Pend Oreille.
Water levels in Osoyoos Lake are rising as heavy snowpack in central British Columbia begins to melt. During the runoff season, the lake can rise sharply and cause downstream rivers to flow more swiftly.
The beaches of one of the world’s most remote islands have been found to be polluted with the highest density of plastic debris reported anywhere on the planet, in a study published in journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
No matter the location in the Columbia and Snake river basins, as the region heads into summer, forecasts for water supply are all above normal, driven by higher than normal precipitation and snowfall during the 2016-17 water year.
In its second pinniped status report of the year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is reporting that the number of sea lions feasting on salmon at Bonneville Dam is up from its first report, released April 18. However, predation on salmon is still far below long-term averages, likely due to the low number of spring chinook that are approaching the dam.
NOAA has appointed Kevin Werner, Ph.D., as the new Science and Research Director for NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
Washington State officials say they are taking swift legal action against the U.S. government after a tunnel full of mixed radioactive and chemical waste collapsed Tuesday at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
A long-standing dispute regarding endangered species may find resolution this summer when the governors of Idaho and Oregon attempt to work through their disagreements regarding fish passage over the Hells Canyon Complex of dams on the Snake River.
From now until the end of August, 2017, anglers will be heading to the Columbia and Snake Rivers in hopes of catching northern pikeminnow and earning big bucks too.
In another attempt to convince U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Michael H. Simon to allow Portland General Electric to appeal his last decision in a Deschutes River clean water case, the utility submitted another reply brief in support of a motion for certifying his ruling.
Washington Department of Ecology and Cowlitz County have completed their environmental review for the largest proposed coal export terminal in North America.
Lethal removal of sea lions at Bonneville Dam is likely not reducing predation on salmon and steelhead at the dam by California sea lions.
The number of sea lions at Bonneville Dam is matching the number of salmon passing the dam, both numbers quite low for this time of year.
New research at Oregon State University empirically demonstrates that a variety of mechanisms for engaging nature significantly contribute to a person’s overall well-being.
The Bureau of Reclamation is seeking comments on the Draft Environmental Assessment for the proposed Grand Coulee Dam G1 – G18 Modernization and Overhaul Project.
In the spring when water temperatures start to rise, rainbow trout that have spent several years at sea traveling hundreds of miles from home manage to find their way back to the rivers and streams where they were born for spawning.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is reporting that by the end of March, the U.S. had its second warmest year-to-date and ninth warmest March on record, but it was noted that cool and wet weather in the Pacific Northwest qualifies as an “anomaly” compared to national conditions.
Water supply forecasts at two major dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers have risen since the official water supply forecasts were set in early April.
A federal court sided with an Oregon environmental organization this week in a ruling that said the Environmental Protection Agency must comply with the Endangered Species Act in approving water pollution clean-up plans.
ODFW this week released its 2016 Wolf Annual Report and a Draft Revised Wolf Management Plan.
A bucket of seawater contains more than meets the eye – it can be full of fish DNA.
Scientists are now putting that DNA to good use to track fish migration with a new technique that involves a fraction of the effort and cost of previous methods.
Priest Lake anglers can expect kokanee fishing to be similar to what they found last year.
Between October 2011 and September 2015, California saw its driest four-year period in the instrumental record, which dates back to 1895.
A non-native anadromous fish now provides as much marine-derived nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, in the lower Columbia River as do native salmon.
Big pieces are in place for a robust water year in the Columbia Basin states, with above-to-well above average snowpacks that are beginning to ripen for runoff in the coming months.
NOAA Fisheries has removed Puget Sound canary rockfish from the federal list of threatened and endangered species after a “recent collaborative study found those fish are not genetically distinct from other canary rockfish on the West Coast,” said a press release announcing the delisting.
Anglers have three opportunities in March to meet with state fishery managers to talk about salmon fisheries in the mid- and upper Columbia River and lower Snake River before this year’s seasons are set.
State laboratory tests revealed this week that the substance creating an oil sheen in the Columbia River at Wenatchee is biodiesel. Spill investigators can now narrow their search for its source with a goal to keep it from getting into the river.
New research supports the creation of more marine reserves in the world’s oceans because, the authors say, fish can evolve to be more cautious and stay away from fishing nets.
Fisheries managers have been predicting a slightly below-average run of spring chinook salmon on the Columbia River this year but a newly published study suggests that it may be worse.
U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) sent a letter this week to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Office of Management and Budget, urging them to allocate the necessary funding to address unmet obligations to the four Columbia River Treaty Tribes regarding treaty fishing access sites.
Among women of childbearing age in the U.S., fish consumption has increased in recent years while blood mercury concentrations have decreased, suggesting improved health for women and their babies, a new study shows.
The National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will extend the public comment period regarding the proposed alternatives for the restoration of grizzly bears to the North Cascades Ecosystem by 45 days, through April 28, 2017. The agencies received several requests for an extension to the comment period from members of the public and local elected officials.
The number of unique individual sea lions congregating at the base of Bonneville Dam in spring 2016 was the second largest number of the pinnipeds observed since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began counting the animals in 2002.
Eastern Oregon is now in Phase III of wolf management after ODFW staff documented a third year of seven or more breeding pairs in the region east of U.S. Highways 97, 20 and 395 for the year 2016.
Two environmental groups filed suit this week against the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, challenging the legality of a water pollution permitting program.
Environmental scientists and policymakers value long-term research to an extent that far outstrips the amount of funding awarded for it, according to a study published this week.
NOAA Fisheries’ Pinniped-Fishery Interactive Task Force met this week for the fifth time since 2008 to review lethal removal of sea lions and hazing operations aimed at reducing salmon predation at Bonneville Dam.
The Columbia/Snake river basin is set up for a very healthy runoff and water supply year after several months of La Nina conditions that helped deliver colder-than-average temperatures and wetter-than-average precipitation.
Four U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Walla Walla District dams in Idaho and Washington states, plus the McNary Levee System in southeast Washington, have been reclassified by the Corps as safer “Low Risk” dams and dam-related levees within the Corps’ nationwide Dam Safety Action Classification system.
Restoring predator and prey species together helps accelerate ecosystem recovery efforts compared to pursuing restoration of one species at a time, new research concludes.
Wolf OR48, a Shamrock Pack adult male, died on Feb. 26 on private land in northeast Oregon after an unintentional take by the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services.
State fishery managers approved a limited sport fishery for smelt on the Cowlitz River for Saturday, Feb. 25.
NOAA Fisheries announced this week that it is reconvening the Pinniped-Fishery Interaction Task Force to evaluate the implementation of the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho pinniped removal authority authorized by NOAA Fisheries on March 15, 2012, via a Letter of Authorization issued under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Anglers, commercial fishers and others interested in Washington state salmon fisheries can get a preview of this year’s salmon returns and potential fishing seasons at a public meeting Feb. 28 in Olympia.
The 2015-16 El Niño was one of the strongest climate events in recent history with extraordinary winter wave energy, a new study shows, though its impact on beaches was greater in California than in Oregon and Washington.
The Oregon and Washington attorneys general January 25 filed a brief in U.S. District Court disagreeing with Portland General Electric’s assertion that the Deschutes River Alliance’s clean water challenges over the Pelton Round Butte Complex of dams should be taken up with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not with the court.
La Nina conditions that were a big driver behind colder and wetter weather in the Columbia Basin “are no longer present” — at least over the Pacific Ocean, according to a monthly report issued Thursday by the NOAA Climate Prediction Center.
The current water supply forecast across the northern tier of the four-state Columbia River Basin is “near normal to slightly below normal,” according to the National Weather Service, while water supplies are “near normal to well above normal” across southern Oregon and southern Idaho, according to a Thursday presentation by the Northwest River Forecast Center.
Although the North Fork of the Clearwater River is naturally nutrient poor due to the underlying geology, soil and land use, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to supplement Dworshak Reservoir’s nutrients with liquid fertilizer to aid the reservoir’s kokanee population.
A Japanese research group has used a new technology that identifies multiple fish species populating local areas by analyzing DNA samples from seawater, and proved, they say, that this method is accurate and more effective than visual observation.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking candidates to serve for the next three years on the citizen committee that advises the department on wolf recovery and management.
The water supply outlook for the Columbia River Basin is shaping up to be considerably wetter in 2017 than it was in 2016, a year marked by both record heat and much higher-than-average precipitation in the last months of the year.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker Wednesday determined there are commercial fishery failures for nine salmon and crab fisheries in Alaska, California and Washington.
U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) have introduced the West Coast Ocean Protection Act to permanently prohibit offshore drilling on the outer continental shelf off of Washington, Oregon, and California.
A new study used the same kind of models that scientists use to track disease to instead examine how some California sea lions have learned to prey on salmon gathering to ascend fish ladders at Bonneville Dam.
The Columbia River basin states are in for a cold and wet winter as a result of continuing influences from the La Nina weather pattern that builds off colder than normal water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.
The Columbia River Basin Restoration Act, aimed at reducing toxins, passed the House and Senate last week as a part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2016.
The average U.S. temperature in autumn was 57.6 degrees F (4.1 degrees above average) and surpassed last fall as the warmest on record, according to scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Precipitation during this period was about average for the nation, with wet extremes in the Northwest and dry extremes in the Central Rockies, Gulf Coast region and interior Southeast.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday announced $900,000 in grants under the Wolf Livestock Demonstration Project Grant Program. Grants will be distributed to the states of Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin.
Current research from Umeå University in Sweden shows that the young salmon’s desire to migrate to the sea can partly be limited by anxiety.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife this week released the Conservation Plan for Gray Wolves in California.
The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday gave an “inadequate” rating to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Millennium Bulk Terminals coal export facility at Longview, Washington.
Northwest U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) have in a letter urged President Obama to exercise his authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to permanently withdraw the West Coast from consideration for new oil and gas leasing.
The Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society will hold its 2017 annual meeting in Bend Feb. 28-March 3 with the theme “Casting a Broader Net: Increasing Diversity and Inclusion in the Fisheries Profession.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week announced actions to update the limits for toxic pollutants in Washington’s surface waters, which the agency says will protect water quality and people who eat fish from those waters.
NOAA weather forecasters say the U.S. had one of the third warmest Octobers on record, dating back 122 years, during an exceptionally warm year, but the Pacific Northwest stood out last month because of well-above average precipitation.
Major forest die-offs due to drought, heat and beetle infestations or deforestation could have consequences far beyond the local landscape.
The colonization of far-flung Remote Oceania some 3,400 years ago was one of the most ambitious and expansive population dispersals in human history.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration will host three “public scoping meetings” in Montana on the Columbia River Systems Operations Environmental Impact Statement (CRSO EIS).
Forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center Thursday issued the U.S. Winter Outlook, saying that La Nina is expected to influence winter conditions this year.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has suspended its pursuit of the remaining members of a wolf pack that preyed on cattle throughout the summer in northeast Washington.
The National Climate Prediction Center on Thursday abruptly shifted its El Nino-La Nina forecast from “neutral” to a La Nina weather pattern that has a 70 percent chance of developing this fall and persisting through winter.
The National Weather Service and other state and federal agencies recently provided an update on drought and climate conditions in the Pacific Northwest, with summaries concluding that drought conditions across the region as a whole have improved since 2014-2015.
The Bonneville Power Administration completed its 33rd consecutive annual payment to the U.S. Treasury on time and in full. The total payment was for $1.9 billion for fiscal year 2016, which ended Sept. 30. BPA’s cumulative payments to the U.S. Treasury during those 33 years amount to more than $27.6 billion.
The House Committee on Natural Resources has passed H.R. 564, the “Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act,” which authorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue one-year permits to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and several tribal groups to lethally take non-endangered sea lions in order to protect endangered and threatened species of salmon.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the longest continuous glacier research efforts in North America.
In 1966, the U.S. Geological Survey began measuring changes in mass and volume at Wolverine and Gulkana glaciers in Alaska as part of its Benchmark Glacier program. These data serve as indicators of glacier health and help scientists understand how glaciers respond to a warming climate.
An effort to return the remains of the “Ancient One,” also known as Kennewick Man, to Columbia Basin tribes cleared a significant hurdle last week after the U.S. Senate passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2016. The bill now moves to the U.S. House of Representatives.
NOAA is reporting that summer temperatures across the contiguous United States, June through August of this year, were the fifth highest on record, and a forecast for a La Nina weather pattern emerging has been downgraded to a “neutral” forecast that could mean continued warmer-than-average temperatures in the Pacific Northwest through the fall and winter.
“The Columbia River Basin Restoration Act” passed the Senate Thursday as part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2016 in a vote of 95 to 3.
Endangered humpback whales in nine of 14 newly identified distinct population segments have recovered enough that they don’t warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act, NOAA Fisheries said this week.
Ice age inhabitants of Interior Alaska relied more heavily on salmon and freshwater fish in their diets than previously thought, according to a newly published study.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is offering “free fishing” days through Tuesday while the agency’s license sales system is down.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists received authorization last week to remove a wolf pack in Ferry County after investigating two calf carcasses and an injured calf in a grazing area.
In the same toxic stormwater brew that kills coho salmon in less than three hours, their chum cousins did just fine.
Pharmaceutical and illicit drugs are present in streams in Baltimore, Maryland. At some sites, amphetamine concentrations are high enough to alter the base of the aquatic food web.
A new analysis suggests that massive earthquakes on northern sections of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, affecting areas of the Pacific Northwest that are more heavily populated, are somewhat more frequent than has been believed in the past.
Oregon State University President Edward J. Ray last week announced that a new $50 million center for global marine studies research and education will be built at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.
Researchers have uncovered previously hidden sources of ocean pollution along more than 20 percent of America’s coastlines, including the Pacific Northwest.
A proposal by fisheries managers to stop transportation of juvenile salmon and steelhead at Snake River dams as of Monday was changed when they realized the basis for ceasing transportation itself had changed.
The Washington Department of Ecology Monday adopted a water quality rule – the fish consumption rule — that updates standards which set pollution limits for businesses and municipalities that discharge wastewater.
A fish pathogen similar to one previously found in the United States only in Pacific salmonids — salmon and trout species — has been identified for the first time in the eastern United States and in a non-salmon species, according to new research by the U.S. Geological Survey.
High ocean temperatures and poor timing of parasite management likely led to an epidemic of sea lice in 2015 throughout salmon farms in British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Strait, a University of Toronto-led study has found.
Nearly 25,000 species of fish live on our planet, and a University of Washington professor wants to scan and digitize them all.
Tribal fishing families living in distressed conditions along the Columbia River received “major support” Thursday when Oregon and Washington members of the U.S. House and Senate introduced legislation that would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to assess and improve the living conditions at federally-owned tribal treaty fishing sites, said the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in a press release.
The Columbia Basin is possibly looking at a summer with progressively diminishing water supplies, because of similar conditions that developed last year across the basin.
For the fifth year in a row, Dworshak Reservoir on Idaho’s North Fork Clearwater River has made the Bassmaster Magazine Top-100 list of best places to fish for bass, according to information released by B.A.S.S. Communications at https://www.bassmaster.com/best-bass-lakes.
The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” came to the attention of the world in the mid-1990s. Since then, there has been increasing interest from scientists, the public and policy makers regarding plastic debris in the environment.
Idaho Fish and Game is asking for the public’s help in determining who is responsible for removing and killing young wolves from a den in northern Idaho.
After snatching and eating almost 9,000 spring chinook salmon and steelhead through May 31, the number of pinnipeds lurking at Bonneville Dam has dropped to just one, a California sea lion. Steller sea lions were completely absent by the end of May.
Water managers in the Columbia Basin are expecting a slightly below average runoff in the months leading to September, but so far it has been gradual, mostly due to cooler temperatures.
The Walla Walla District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it is improving both adult and juvenile fish passage at Lower Granite Lock and Dam to help endangered salmon and steelhead migrate in the lower Snake River.
NOAA Fisheries announced that it is reconvening the Pinniped-Fishery Interaction Task Force to provide NOAA Fisheries with a recommendation to either approve or deny the states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington’s, January application requesting a 5-year extension of the states’ 2012 Letter of Authorization allowing lethal removal of sea lions at Bonneville Dam.
Using tags surgically implanted into thousands of juvenile salmon, University of British Columbia researchers have discovered that many fish die within the first few days of migration from their birthplace to the ocean.
A new study provides insight into how the current El Niño, one of the strongest on record, formed in the Pacific Ocean.
Through the week of May 16, the Bureau of Reclamation, in partnership with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries, will release additional water from Bowman Dam on the Crooked River to determine if increased flows will aid steelhead smolts in their downstream migration to Lake Billy Chinook in Central Oregon.
While water supply conditions are still considered better than they were at this time last year, warmer-than-average temperatures throughout April in the Columbia River Basin produced a rapid snowpack runoff that will drive peak streamflows weeks ahead of historic averages.
Getting fish over dams and natural barriers may get a lot easier as more and more Northwest fisheries managers test the “salmon cannon.”
The Oregon Health Authority has issued a statewide advisory for bass due to elevated levels of mercury found in fish tissue sampled from a number of water bodies across the state.
The number of sea lions at Bonneville Dam continues to rise as does the number of salmon and steelhead the predators eat.
The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center is projecting that the El Nino weather pattern will dissipate around late summer, and that there are growing indications a La Nina pattern will develop going into winter. Both patterns are largely driven by Pacific Ocean water temperatures.
Researchers who study fish put a high value on biodiversity in the field, yet a new study found a surprising lack of diversity among fisheries scientists themselves.
An April 1 near-average snowpack and current seasonal runoff forecast throughout the Snake River Basin has prompted regional water managers at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Walla Walla District to rate the 2016 spring flood potential at normal to slightly above normal.
How the economic impacts of a fishery collapse are determined will also determine who should be eligible for federal disaster relief.
A federal judge on April 6 ordered two environmental groups, five Central Oregon irrigation districts and the U.S, Bureau of Reclamation to meet to resolve disputes over the best ways to mitigate harm to the Oregon spotted frog while maintaining the public interest for irrigation needs in the Deschutes River basin.
The Northwest River Forecast Center is projecting streamflows through most of the Columbia Basin to be near or slightly above the 30-year average from April through September, a notable improvement over last year’s conditions, but an early runoff is expected once again.
NOAA Fisheries this week issued a final rule protecting several species of forage fish of the U.S. West Coast Exclusive Economic Zone by prohibiting directed commercial fishing on the species.
As the 2016 spring chinook salmon and steelhead returns grow in numbers in the lower Columbia River, so have the numbers of sea lions observed at Bonneville Dam. The sea lions – both Steller and California sea lions –gather at the base of the dam to feed on the fish.
The Bureau of Reclamation is developing a draft Environmental Assessment for the largest comprehensive maintenance project undertaken at Hungry Horse Dam in Montana since the dam opened in 1952.
The Oregon Department of Fish And Wildlife has confirmed five livestock depredation incidents on private land within the past three weeks by some wolves in the Imnaha pack, despite continued efforts by ODFW, Wallowa County officials, and area livestock producers to deter wolf-livestock conflict with non-lethal measures.
Lake Huron’s chinook salmon fishery will likely never return to its glory days because the lake can no longer support the predatory fish’s main food source, the herring-like alewife, according to a new University of Michigan-led computer-modeling study.
Two rewards totaling $10,000 have been offered for information on the killing of a federally protected grizzly bear in Idaho.
U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, questioned Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz this week on the Administration’s proposed budget for cleanup of nuclear waste at the Hanford site for fiscal year 2017.
Despite the influences of an El Nino weather pattern that was expected to lead to a warmer, drier winter in the Pacific Northwest, this year is shaping up to be better than last year in terms of water supply forecasts.
Oregon’s known wolf population continued to grow in 2015. The minimum Oregon wolf population is now 110 wolves, a 36 percent increase over the 2014 population.
A new study of emerging contaminants entering Puget Sound in wastewater plant effluent found some of the nation’s highest concentrations of these chemical compounds, and detected many in fish at concentrations that may affect their growth or behavior.
Several groups are keeping up the pressure in their opposition to the Yakima Basin Plan, sending a letter this week to the full U.S. Senate saying that the plan is “controversial, costly and environmentally damaging,” and that it is not germane to an omnibus energy bill now before the Senate.
An infectious European virus has been found in wild salmon in British Columbia, Canada, according to a recent study.
NOAA scientists and partners have embarked on a land, sea, and air campaign in the tropical Pacific to study the current El Niño and gather data in an effort to improve weather forecasts thousands of miles away.
Despite predictions of strong El Nino influences that would result in warmer and drier conditions, the Columbia Basin is persevering so far with near-average snowpack and streamflow forecasts.
The Washington Department of Ecology proposed this week a new draft clean water rule (also known as the fish consumption rule) that it says contains a more protective cancer risk rate, in keeping with the governor’s directive from October 2015.
The United States must make preparing for and adapting to wildfire a top national priority, says a team of University of Idaho researchers and their international partners in a paper published this week in the journal BioScience.
The Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society’s Annual Meeting will be held March 1-4, 2016 in Seaside.
A new global analysis of seafood found that fish populations throughout the world’s oceans are contaminated with industrial and agricultural pollutants, collectively known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
El Niño is fairly well understood, and by now it’s a household word. But another huge system in the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans, which wreaks similar havoc in world weather, is relatively unknown and is just beginning to be explained.
Countries drastically underreport the number of fish caught worldwide, according to a new study, and the numbers obscure a significant decline in the total catch.
The Northwest transmission grid took a step into the future today with the $370 million modernization of a one-of-a-kind piece of infrastructure, the Celilo Converter Station.
A deadly fungus causing population crashes in wild European salamanders could emerge in the United States and threaten already declining amphibians here, according to a report released this week by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced a draft methodology to better identify and prioritize pending Endangered Species Act “status reviews,” the process by which the Service determines whether a species that has been petitioned for listing warrants ESA protection.
The most efficient way to clean up ocean plastics and avoid harming ecosystems is to place plastic collectors near coasts, according to a new study.
So far, the snowpack and water supply forecasts for the Columbia Basin are holding up to historical averages, but there is a continuing concern that conditions may dry up because of El Nino climate patterns.
Salmon are the primary summer food source for an endangered population of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest, according to an analysis of fish DNA in killer whale poop published last week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Michael Ford from the National Marine Fisheries Service and colleagues.
Forests help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by storing it in trees, but a sizable amount of the greenhouse gas actually escapes through the soil and into rivers and streams.
A rain-soaked landscape, with more rain predicted and rivers nearly at flood stage for almost two weeks in Oregon and Washington is making it nearly impossible for the federal Columbia River operating agencies to guarantee the best targeted tailwater elevation at Bonneville Dam to aid spawning chum salmon.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center this week issued a three-month outlook for El Nino weather pattern influences, showing well above average temperatures and below-average precipitation for the Pacific Northwest through March of 2016.
Researchers monitoring the unprecedented bloom of toxic algae along the west coast of North America in 2015 found record levels of the algal toxin domoic acid in samples from a wide range of marine organisms.
The Bureau of Reclamation has released the Hood River Basin Study, which assesses current and future water supply and demand in the Hood River Basin in Oregon and adjacent areas.
The National Weather Service has warned for months that this year’s El Nino weather pattern will be among the strongest on record, with predictions for higher-than-normal precipitation and warmer-than-normal temperatures in the Pacific Northwest that have proven to be true.
Regular closures on catch and release waters could actually improve the quality of angling when the waters are reopened, according to a recent study.
The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a regulation that will require anglers to kill and keep any walleye that are caught on Swan Lake, the Swan River and its tributaries in the northwest region of the state.
Advocates for Kachess Lake in Northwest Washington are challenging a Bureau of Reclamation move for a “temporary” irrigation pumping operation on the lake, saying it is an “end-run” around the Yakima Integrated Water Plan that has recently advanced in the U.S. Senate.
In 2014, the Meyer Memorial Trust brought together more than 20 university, agency, and technical experts to help create the first Willamette River report card.
The Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission recently issued an order denying further hearings related to the transfer of a federal license for Kerr Dam operations on Flathead Lake to the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes of Montana.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has released the draft conservation plan for gray wolves in California and is soliciting comment.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have confirmed a new wolf pack near the towns of Twisp and Omak in Washington State. The new pack will be designated as the Loup Loup Pack, reflecting a prominent place name within the pack’s range in the Methow Valley.
Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, together with scientists from the universities of Stirling and Bristol (United Kingdom), have for the first time observed an increase in body temperature of between two and four degrees in zebrafish, when these are subjected to stressful situations.
Scientists monitoring the spread of radiation in the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear accident report finding an increased number of sites off the US West Coast showing signs of contamination from Fukushima.
The number of fall chinook passing Bonneville Dam continues to mount with nearly 1,000 more fish over the dam this week, increasing the record run to 954,376, or 212 percent of the 10-year average, according to NOAA Fisheries’ Paul Wagner at Wednesday’s Technical Management Team meeting.
The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has resumed its review of legislation that would implement a plan for managing water and conservation efforts in the Yakima Basin, with critics pressing for changes that would tighten environmental reviews and general oversight of the Yakima Basin Plan.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted Monday to delist wolves from the state Endangered Species Act throughout Oregon.
This week U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, joined her Senate colleagues and the Secretaries of Energy and the Interior at a signing ceremony for the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.
A lawsuit has been filed challenging the adequacy of environmental reviews for salmon farms in the Puget Sound and the threats they may pose to wild salmon in the region.
Salmon migrating from the open ocean to inland waters do more than swim upstream. To navigate the murkier freshwater streams and reach a spot to spawn, the fish have evolved a means to enhance their ability to see infrared light. Humans lack this evolutionary adaptation.
This week U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) sent a letter to Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy expressing concern about current living conditions at Columbia River Treaty Fishing Access Sites in the Columbia Gorge and seeking a fair, sustainable, and timely solution to improve the conditions.
A large team of scientists has nearly completed the first map of the mantle under the tectonic plate that is colliding with the Pacific Northwest and putting Seattle, Portland and Vancouver at risk of the largest earthquakes and tsunamis in the world.
In some years 30 percent to 95 percent of the spring chinook salmon transported into blocked areas upstream of dams on the Willamette River will die before spawning.
Walleye have been discovered in Montana’s Swan Lake, a major link to Flathead Lake and the broader Flathead River system that is home to native bull trout, a species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
A study published this week in Nature Communications suggests that the weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina could lead to at least a doubling of extreme droughts and floods in California later this century.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee this week announced he’s directing the state Department of Ecology to draft a new clean water rule that will “preserve the state’s decision-making control over how to meet federal requirements,” said the governor’s office in a press release.
The Bonneville Power Administration this week announced that it completed its 32nd consecutive annual payment to the U.S. Treasury on time and in full. The total payment was $891 million for fiscal year 2015, which ended Sept. 30.
On Thursday Oct. 8, an electrical equipment failure which created an explosion was reported in the powerhouse at Grant PUD’s Priest Rapids Dam. Six employees sustained various levels of injury.
Montana’s elected Public Service Commission has weighed in on the transfer of a federal dam license for Kerr Dam at the foot of Flathead Lake to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, alleging that the vetting process for the transfer has been inadequate.
Far more double-crested cormorants have been culled from the lower Columbia River estuary near East Sand Island in the past three weeks than during the entire summer of activity by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services.
A parasite more prevalent in lakes than in streams could hamper recovery efforts of reintroduced chinook salmon transported upstream of dams, according to a recent study focused on four Willamette River reservoirs.
Passage for adult salmon at Bonneville and John Day dams is about 95 percent, but for Pacific lamprey, the passage number seems to be stuck at less than 50 percent.
Even though cooler temperatures and fall colors are returning, Washington’s historic drought isn’t over.
Public participation in scientific research has surged in popularity and prominence in recent years through the connections of the world wide web, an explosion of smartphone pocket computing power, and a slow cultural change within professional science toward a more open and welcoming research environment, says a report from the Ecological Society of America.
Many of us have our own definitions of sustainable fisheries and those definitions would mostly be correct, although they would likely all differ with each other in some small way.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week proposed a rule setting fish consumption rates that would strengthen Washington State’s human health criteria and water quality standards.
Longer, less frequent climate fluctuations may be contributing to abrupt and unexplained ecosystem shifts in the North Pacific, according to a study by the University of Exeter.
As Northwest scientists work to understand why 80 large sturgeon suddenly died in the Columbia River last month, a BPA research project focused on sturgeon sexual maturity attempts to gain insight into the reproductive cycle of the ancient fish.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has photographic evidence of five gray wolf pups and two adults in Northern California.
Are humans unsustainable ‘super predators’?
Research published in the journal Science reveals new insight behind widespread wildlife extinctions, shrinking fish sizes and disruptions to global food chains.
Teck Metals Limited and Teck American Incorporated have reached a legally binding cleanup agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to begin removing lead and other contaminants from 15 properties in northeast Washington state.
WaterWatch of Oregon this week announced its intention to challenge the Central Oregon Irrigation District, North Unit Irrigation District, Tumalo Irrigation District, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation over “harm caused by their water use operations in the Upper Deschutes River.”
Driven by higher-than-normal Pacific Ocean water temperatures, an El Nino weather pattern has been building in strength since March, but its impacts will vary from one region to another.
A NOAA Fisheries biologist reported this week that summer chinook migration amounted to a record at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, but the strong return was significantly diminished by high water temperature mortalities.
A variety of fishing restrictions have been imposed across the Columbia River Basin due to low water and high water temperature conditions, but bright spots are shining on waters below Libby Dam in Montana.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has lifted fishing restrictions the lower Deschutes River. Anglers can now fish after 2 p.m. from Macks Canyon to the mouth of the river. The change is effective immediately.
The biodiversity of two Northern Pacific salmon species may be at risk due to changes in ocean conditions at the equator, reports a study by the University of California, Davis.
The notion that septic tanks prevent fecal bacteria from seeping into rivers and lakes simply doesn’t hold water, says a new Michigan State University study.
A new USGS online tool http://cida.usgs.gov/quality/rivers/home provides graphical summaries of nutrients and sediment levels in rivers and streams across the nation.
A new NASA study has concluded California accumulated a debt of about 20 inches of precipitation between 2012 and 2015 — the average amount expected to fall in the state in a single year. The deficit was driven primarily by a lack of air currents moving inland from the Pacific Ocean that are rich in water vapor.
Water rights that were among the earliest in the Washington Territory be used for irrigation have been shut off in tributaries of the Yakima River due to extreme drought conditions.
Warm water temperatures came earlier than usual to many of Idaho’s fishing waters, but it’s unlikely to lead to fishing closures or restrictions similar to those that neighboring states have implemented.
As Montana creeps into the dog days of summer, state fisheries managers continue to monitor wild and native trout streams that have endured nearly two months of stressful low and warm water conditions.
Smallmouth bass, walleye, sunfish, perch, bluegill, catfish, crappie.
All are fish that thrive in the warm waters of several Oregon rivers. All are non-native, or invasive, species and, given the opportunity, some will feed on juvenile salmon and steelhead, many of those listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
NOAA announced this week that it is committing $88,000 in grant and event response funding for Washington state to monitor and analyze an unusually large bloom of toxic algae off its coast.
As many as 80 large, broodstock-sized sturgeon were found dead this week in the Columbia River upstream of Bonneville Dam, triggering a complete closure of fishing for what some are calling “valuable, almost irreplaceable fish.”
In 2014, the most essential indicators of Earth’s changing climate continued to reflect trends of a warming planet, with several markers – rising land and ocean temperature, sea levels and greenhouse gases ─ setting new records. These key findings and others can be found in the State of the Climate in 2014 report released online this week by the American Meteorological Society.
For the past year, wildlife biologists at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have been preparing for the summer grazing season when wolves are most likely to encounter livestock in eastern Washington.
How do you manage the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery?
At a change of command ceremony this week, Brigadier General Scott A. Spellmon assumed command of the Northwestern Division office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He succeeds Brigadier General John S. Kem, who has served as commander since July 2013.
Dead and distressed sockeye salmon found this past weekend in the Deschutes River appear to have been fish from the Columbia River bound for other upriver locations that likely swam into the Deschutes in search of cooler water.
Globally, 60 percent of fish caught by recreational anglers are released and many of those anglers use manual release techniques they believe will help the fish survive.
About 380 Eastern Washington water users are being asked to curtail irrigation due to early and extremely low stream flows caused by drought.
A draft rule would help Washington deal with water shortages by encouraging local jurisdictions to reuse or reclaim water.
A water rights compact for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes cleared a huge hurdle with the approval of the Montana Legislature this spring, but opposition to the perpetually binding conditions for tribal water rights under the compact persists.
The 145th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society will convene August 16-20, 2015 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.
The presence of double-crested cormorant nests and chicks on East Sand Island has brought the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ planned culling operations to a standstill the last two weeks.
After a record year of devouring nearly 8,500 chinook salmon and steelhead in the Bonneville Dam tailrace, the Steller and California sea lion (pinnipeds) presence is on the decline, reaching a season daily average low May 29, the last day of daylight observations.
Reports of fish die offs have been coming into the Idaho Department of Fish and Game regional office in Coeur d’Alene for about the last two weeks.
While the U.S. inland waterways system covers a vast geographic area, its freight traffic is highly concentrated, and the system needs a sustainable and well-executed plan for maintaining system reliability and performance to ensure that its limited resources are directed where they are most essential, says a new report from the National Research Council’s Transportation Research Board.
Alaska’s melting glaciers are adding enough water to the Earth’s oceans to cover the state of Alaska with a 1-foot thick layer of water every seven years, a new study shows.
Despite recent rains in the Columbia Basin, it hasn’t been enough to alter forecasts for low river flows between now and September.
Fisheries managers in Idaho recently provided an update on ongoing research into the nature of lake trout, kokanee and native fish species in the Priest Lake ecosystem, finding that kokanee have been persistent despite the presence of lake trout.
Representatives from the Coastal Conservation Association Oregon, Columbia River treaty tribes, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and others will be joined by U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-OR, in Oregon City Saturday, May 30, to support proposed legislation that would enhance fish and wildlife managers’ abilities to reduce predation on threatened and endangered salmon, steelhead and other native fish species in the Columbia River system by removing predators such as sea lions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy have reached a settlement over DOE’s failure to meet a critical September 2014 Tri-Party Agreement milestone for beginning sludge removal from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation’s K West Basin along the Columbia River.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to conduct an extended navigation lock outage beginning December 12, 2016, Corps officials from Walla Walla and Portland districts announced this week during a regional navigation meeting held at the Port of Morrow SAGE Center in Boardman, Oregon.
A trap malfunction resulted in the accidental death of two California sea lions at Bonneville Dam last week.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife technicians last week (April 24) discovered Zebra mussels on a boat at the Ontario boat inspection station. The boat being hauled from Lake Erie in Ohio is the first vessel of the 2015 inspection season found to be infested with the invasive mussels. The station opened in March.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has directed ODFW staff to develop two options for delisting wolves from the state Endangered Species Act: one that would delist wolves in eastern Oregon (boundary Hwys 97-20-395) and one that would delist wolves statewide.
Axial Seamount, an active underwater volcano located about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and Washington, appears to be erupting – after two scientists had forecast that such an event would take place there in 2015.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that it will distribute $1.1 billion in revenues generated by the hunting and angling industry to state and territorial fish and wildlife agencies throughout the nation. These funds support critical fish and wildlife conservation efforts and recreation projects that benefit all Americans.
After ten years of on and off court action, a lawsuit was filed this week to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to protect Oregon waters by adopting limits on four toxic pollutants.
The results of recent work to restore native westslope cutthroat trout in the Pend Oreille River drainage of northeast Washington will be discussed at a public meeting Tuesday, April 28, 6 – 8 p.m., at the Cusick American Legion, 105 E Timber St., Cusick.
Tropical Pacific climate variations and their global weather impacts may be predicted much further in advance than previously thought, according to research by an international team of climate scientists from the USA, Australia, and Japan.
The versions of these stories in the CBB e-mail newsletter included some incorrect information which has been corrected on the website.
All 26 lawmakers representing Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana urged President Obama this week to make the Columbia River Treaty a priority.
The number of domestic fish stocks listed as overfished or subject to overfishing has dropped to an all-time low since 1997, when NOAA began tracking stock status, according to the 2014 Status of U.S. Fisheries report to Congress.
The long-forecasted El Niño event of 2014/15 did not meet expectations. On March 5, 2015, the National Weather Service finally declared a “weak” event arriving several months later than expected, formally dashing predictions that we would see a major event on par with the monster El Niño of 1997/98 that would bring much-needed rain to California and other western states.
Intending to help young fish pass the dams safely to the ocean, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun implementing its Columbia River Basin 2015 Spring Fish Operations Plan.
A new study shows for the first time that fishing likely worsens population collapses in species of forage fish, including herring, anchovies and sardines.
With a drought on the horizon, the Washington Department of Ecology is looking to lease water from irrigators to keep streams from going dry in the upper Yakima River Basin.
A federal judge recently ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency and Washington’s Department of Ecology have come up short in their approach for reducing PCBs in the Spokane River, which is regarded as one of the more polluted waterways in the state.
Washington state’s wolf population grew by more than 30 percent and formed four new packs last year, according to an annual survey conducted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A new study highlights the value of local knowledge in recovering endangered species.
The collaborative research, co-authored by NOAA Fisheries, the University of Washington, and researchers from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, is specifically designed to incorporate the knowledge of recreational anglers into recovery planning for three rockfish species in Puget Sound–bocaccio, canary rockfish, and yelloweye rockfish, each of which was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 2010.
Large-scale climate patterns that affect the Pacific Ocean indicate that waters off the West Coast have shifted toward warmer, less productive conditions that may affect marine species from seabirds to salmon, according to the 2015 State of the California Current Report delivered to the Pacific Fishery Management Council.
Deep-water marine fish living on the continental slopes at depths from 2,000 feet to one mile have liver pathologies, tumors and other health problems that may be linked to human-caused pollution, one of the first studies of its type has found.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has appointed fishing columnist Dave Graybill and retired public health physician Kim Thorburn to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission.
A long February dry spell across much of the Columbia River basin helped to draw down forecasts of how much snowpack will be available in spring and summer to feed the vast river system that needs the water for fish, power at dams, irrigation of crops and many other uses.
That long awaited sign of spring has finally arrived for Columbia River basin anglers – a report late this week of the first true crossing of an upriver spring chinook salmon at Bonneville Dam, which is located 146 miles upstream from the mouth of the river.
A recent study questions the accuracy of the long-used technique of scale morphology when estimating fish age and timing for juvenile chinook salmon migrating into the Columbia River estuary.
A 2014 census of the Oregon gray wolf population turned up 77 gray wolves, an increase of 20 percent over last year’s tally, according to an annual report by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
New information from scientists with NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center indicates that this year is likely to be another rough year for California sea lions.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has made Curt Melcher its choice to be the next director for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A report published Thursday in the journal Nature suggests that global warming may increase upwelling in several ocean current systems around the world by the end of this century, especially at high latitudes, and will cause major changes in marine biodiversity.
The Cascade Mountains that stretch north and south through Oregon and Washington have been in relatively drier straits this winter through early February but most of the rest of the Columbia River basin is at or near normal in terms of snow-water accumulations that fill streams for fish, irrigators, power producers and others during the spring and summer seasons.
Oregon is moving to “Phase II” of its wolf recovery plan after wildlife biologists documented seven breeding pairs of wolves in Oregon in 2014.
Pallid sturgeon come from a genetic line that has lived on this planet for tens of millions of years, yet it has been decades since biologists have documented any of the enormous fish successfully producing young that survive to adulthood in the upper Missouri River basin.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
