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.
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.
How and where water bird predation impacts juvenile salmon and steelhead must be considered on a case- by-case basis before taking action against the birds, according to a new report being considered at this week’s Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting.
A hatchery program designed to compensate for the loss of nearly half the historical abundance of steelhead returning to the Snake River caused by the installation and operation of dams in the 1960s is “highly effective,” according to a recently released review by a panel of scientists. The scientists added that the program practices good science, uses sound actions and is adaptable to the changing conditions in the river.
Scientists at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center helped pioneer the study of an automobile tire toxin found to kill coho salmon when it runs off highways in stormwater and into streams. Now they have found a way to measure the toxin, 6PPD-quinone, directly in marine life, including fish, shellfish and marine mammals.
A team of scientists has proposed additional guiding principles and performance measures — based on the full lifecycles of salmon and steelhead — that they believe will help with Columbia River estuary restoration.
For years, scientists at Washington State University’s Puyallup Research & Extension Center have been working to untangle a mystery: Why do coho salmon in Puget Sound creeks seem to suffocate after rainstorms — rising to the surface, gaping, and swimming in circles before dying?
In a review of 40 years of habitat restoration projects, a panel of fisheries scientists concluded that projects that remove barriers to salmon and steelhead, augment stream flows and add wood to give streams structure would likely achieve what they set out to do within a short period of time.
New Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife research sheds light on the link between a changing climate and ocean and ecosystem conditions; and winter steelhead survival on the Washington coast.
Growing communities and extensive agriculture throughout the Western United States rely on meltwater that spills out of snow-capped mountains every spring. The models for predicting the amount of this streamflow available each year have long assumed that a small fraction of snowmelt each year enters shallow soil, with the remainder rapidly exiting in rivers and creeks.
Stretches of coasts and their rivers form enormous salmon nurseries for the exploring juveniles, the scientists said. The researchers documented coho salmon, steelhead, and cutthroat trout using coastal rivers separated by salt water, and suspect other species may do the same.
Since the 1990s, the decline in numbers of southern resident killer whales in Puget Sound has followed a biennial pattern; births decline and deaths rise in even-numbered years. That biennial pattern matches the decline of Chinook salmon spawner abundance while abundance of pink salmon in the North Pacific and in Puget Sound rivers has risen, according to a study published this month.
There is a new mouth to feed in the coastal waters of the Northwest where juvenile salmon first enter the ocean, and it’s a hungry one.
A federal agency and a state agency have jointly completed a study on the impacts that breaching the four lower Snake River dams would have on water supplies and irrigation.
Oregon is becoming warmer and more prone to drought and will see less snow due to climate change, but people and businesses are also adapting to the challenges of a warming planet, the latest Oregon Climate Assessment indicates.
Floodplain restoration projects designed to improve instream habitat conditions for anadromous fish resulted in an increase in the numbers of juvenile salmon and steelhead, according to a recent study that examined segments of 17 habitat restoration projects in the Columbia River basin.
How did climate change impact ocean waters off the U.S. West Coast this past year? What does that tell us about the growth and survival of juvenile salmon for the years to come?
Increased spill levels at Snake and Columbia river dams, along with lower water flow in the rivers, hampered the ability of scientists to tag and detect juvenile salmon and steelhead as they migrated downstream in 2024.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is acting on its commitment to three Northwest tribes by issuing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) to collect information on the risks of 6PPD quinone in tires, known to be toxic in stormwater runoff to coho salmon and steelhead in Puget Sound.
Sustainable rates of groundwater withdrawal in southeast Oregon’s Harney Basin were surpassed 20 years prior to the time declining groundwater levels were generally recognized, a new analysis found.
The world’s freshwater lakes are freezing over for shorter periods of time due to climate change. This shift has major implications for human safety, as well as water quality, biodiversity, and global nutrient cycles, according to a new analysis from an international team of researchers.
Oregon State University researchers have received a $1 million grant to study the impact of adding seaweed to the diets of beef cattle as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
An international coalition led by Oregon State University scientists concludes in its annual report published this month that the Earth’s worsening vital signs indicate a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis” and that “decisive action is needed, and fast.”
In a recent review, a panel of scientists said the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program for the Columbia River basin is still changing and progressing after 40 years of implementation, but will need further updates and improvements, including a better strategy for incorporating climate change into the Program and a more comprehensive analysis of the outcome of removing the four lower Snake River dams.
Oregon and Washington opened the entire mainstem Columbia River to fall Chinook and coho salmon fishing from Buoy 10 to the Oregon and Washington state border last week. The change by the two-state Columbia River Compact came at its Sept. 18 hearing and was based on an increase in expected fall Chinook returns, as well as higher than average returns of coho.
Artificial intelligence analysis of data gathered by acoustic recording devices is a promising new tool for monitoring the marbled murrelet and other secretive, hard-to-study species, research by Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service has shown.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the ocean off the coast of Los Angeles was a dumping ground for the nation’s largest manufacturer of the pesticide DDT – a chemical now known to harm humans and wildlife. Due to the stubborn chemistry of DDT and its toxic breakdown products, this pollution continues to plague L.A.’s coastal waters more than half a century later.
The status of southwest Washington salmon and steelhead listed under the federal Endangered Species Act is generally stable, although none of these fish populations are close to meeting recovery goals, says a recent report by the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Asotin Creek adult summer steelhead survival is at its lowest in the Bonneville Dam pool as the fish migrate upstream to the Snake River tributary, according to a presentation last week that focused on survival of steelhead listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. Temperature and harvest (catch and release mortalities) are cited as the main reasons for steelhead struggles in the Bonneville Pool.
Researchers who created “family trees” for nearly 10,000 fish found that first-generation, wild-born descendants of hatchery-origin Chinook salmon in an Oregon river show improved fitness.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists in southern Oregon want to know where steelhead go in the ocean after they spawned in the rivers.
An estimated 1.4 million spring/summer Chinook salmon were lost after multiple dams were constructed on the upper Snake River, according to a loss assessment recently completed by the Upper Snake River Tribes Foundation.
urvival of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead is poor – in most cases less than 2 percent smolt to adult returns – compared to a Northwest Power and Conservation SARs goal of 6 percent, according to a presentation at the Council’s March meeting.
The California Current ecosystem is a vital ocean system stretching from Washington to Baja California. It is facing a strong 2024 El Niño event, a cyclical warming of the Pacific Ocean. However, the latest information from NOAA’s Integrated Ecosystem Assessment program suggests the ecosystem is better positioned to weather these changing conditions than previous El Niño events.
Marine heat waves in the northeast Pacific Ocean create ongoing and complex disruptions of the ocean food web that may benefit some species but threaten the future of many others, a new study has shown.
Oregon State University researchers are leading an effort to refine the design and expand use of oxygen monitoring sensors that can be deployed in fishing pots to relay critical information on changing ocean conditions to the fishing industry.
Walleye are one of the most sought-after species in freshwater sportfishing, a delicacy on Midwestern menus and a critically important part of the culture of many Indigenous communities. They are also struggling to survive in the warming waters of the midwestern United States and Canada.
Fish exposed to some pesticides at extremely low concentrations for a brief period of time can demonstrate lasting behavioral changes, with the impact extending to offspring that were never exposed firsthand, a recent study found.
Millions of tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year. The sun’s ultraviolet light and ocean turbulence break down these plastics into invisible nanoparticles that threaten marine ecosystems.
Hatchery-reared salmon show genetic differences from wild populations in only a few generations, but those differences vary among hatcheries.
The pore-like structure of permeable pavements may help protect coho salmon by preventing tire wear particles and related contaminants from entering stormwater runoff, according to a Washington State University study.
In a study that could help reshape understanding and management of water resources in the Western United States, David Ketchum, a 2023 graduate of the University of Montana systems ecology Ph.D. program, has unveiled a 35-year analysis quantifying the interconnected impacts of climate change and irrigation on surface water flows.
Toxic chemicals produced from oil emissions and wildfire smoke have been found in muscle and liver samples from Southern Resident killer whales and Bigg’s killer whales.
Mercury concentrations are twice as high in smallmouth bass found in reservoirs than those in the free-flowing sections of the Snake River in Idaho and Oregon, according to a joint U.S. Geological Survey and Idaho Power Company study that looked at 1,815 specimens of this popular recreational fishing species from a variety of habitats in 31 sites along 530 miles of the Snake River.
More than 93% of young Chinook safely passed Rocky Reach Hydroelectric Project last spring, says Chelan PUD. The results represent the most successful survival study of yearling Chinook in the 21-year history of the Rocky Reach Habitat Conservation Plan.
Forest modeling by Oregon State University scientists shows that a site’s productivity – an indicator of how fast trees grow and how much biomass they accumulate – is the main factor that determines which time period between timber harvests allows for maximum above-ground carbon sequestration.
Firsthand observations of a wolf hunting and killing a harbor seal and a group of wolves hunting and consuming a sea otter on Alaska’s Katmai coast have led scientists to reconsider assumptions about wolf hunting behavior.
An international coalition of climate scientists says in a paper published this week that the Earth’s vital signs have worsened beyond anything humans have yet seen, to the point that life on the planet is imperiled.
High spill volumes to maximum total dissolved oxygen levels in order to reduce passage of juvenile salmon smolts through turbines at federal Columbia and Snake river dams is likely to be most effective at night, during high river flows and when temperatures are colder, according to a recent study. These are times when juveniles are less active and their swimming ability is low.
Chinook, coho and sockeye salmon are in steep decline in the North Pacific and one of the causes is the proliferation of pink salmon, many of which originate from Russian, Japanese and Alaskan fish hatcheries, according to a recent study by scientists in Alaska, Canada and Washington.
The Western United States is losing its glaciers. A new inventory from Portland State University researchers shows that some glaciers have disappeared entirely, some no longer show movement, some are too small to meet the 0.01 square kilometer minimum and some are actually rock glaciers — rocky debris with ice in the pore spaces.
With climate change, some spawning habitat in British Columbia could actually expand, peaking in area around 2060, according to a recent study that looked at current stream habitat and projected future favorable spawning habitat as the climate warms.
Researchers who study water resources want to know how much snow an area will get in a season. The total snowpack gives scientists a better idea of how much water will be available for hydropower, irrigation and drinking later in the year.
For over a century, fish hatcheries across the world have produced salmonids to supply fisheries, mitigate habitat loss and boost depleted stocks. A newly published review of scientific literature examining the impacts of these programs on wild (i.e., naturally produced) salmonids shows that over 80 percent of global, peer-reviewed research on the topic has found that hatchery fish have adverse effects on wild salmonid populations in freshwater and marine environments.
A relatively simple, inexpensive method of filtering urban stormwater runoff dramatically boosted survival of newly hatched coho salmon in an experimental study. That’s the good news for the threatened species from the Washington State University-led research. The bad news: unfiltered stormwater killed almost all of them.
New research has found that marine heat waves – prolonged periods of unusually warm ocean temperatures – haven’t had a lasting effect on the fish communities that feed most of the world.
New research from the University of Washington and Polar Bears International in Bozeman, Montana, quantifies the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and the survival of polar bear populations.
Shifting ocean conditions associated with climate change will likely send high-value sablefish into deeper waters off the West Coast, new research shows. That could make the fish tougher to catch and force fishing crews to follow them or shift to other, more accessible species.
A growing American white pelican population on an island in the mid-Columbia River basin could be a new threat to salmon and steelhead. The large white birds not only scoop out batches of juvenile fish, they also have been known to eat adult salmon, including sockeye salmon and other fish as large as 29 inches.
A study examining protected birds found dead along power lines on public lands in the western U.S. shows that gunshot deaths were three times more common than deaths from other causes.
The next step in Oregon State University’s construction of a wave energy testing facility off the Oregon Coast is visible to residents and visitors to the area this month.
Climate change has led to earlier spring blooms for wildflowers and ocean plankton but the impacts on salmon migration are more complicated, according to new research.
Scientists analyzed more than 650 dam removal projects over 55 years in the United States totaling $1.52 billion inflation-adjusted dollars to develop a tool to better estimate the cost of future dam removals.
Researchers in the Oregon State University College of Engineering are developing technology to convert wastewater into a product that would simultaneously irrigate and fertilize crops.
Since 1980, fires have gotten significantly larger and more severe across California and the western United States, vastly increasing the amount of destruction they cause.
A recent study has revealed that climate change has had a profound impact on the Colorado River Basin between the years 2000 and 2021. The study shows that over this period, more than 40 trillion liters (10 trillion gallons) of water were lost due to climate change effects, which is roughly equivalent to the entire storage capacity of Lake Mead.
Do the effects of juvenile salmon and steelhead passage through the four lower Snake River dams carry over into later life stages, contributing to high mortality in the ocean and far too low smolt-to-adult returns to the Snake River basin? In other words, does the stress of dam passage lead to delayed mortality?
The invasive Asian clam is more common in the lower Columbia River than its native habitat of southeast Asia, according to a study of the clam’s abundance in the river.
Rates of Chinook salmon bycatch in the Pacific hake fishery rise during years when ocean temperatures are warmer, a signal that climate change and increased frequency of marine heatwaves could lead to higher bycatch rates, new research indicates.
New research led by the University of Washington uses data collected by coastal residents along beaches from central California to Alaska to understand how seabirds have fared in recent decades. The paper shows that persistent marine heat waves lead to massive seabird die-offs months later.
A new study of North American songbirds finds that birds can’t keep up with the earlier arrival of spring caused by climate change. As a result, they’re raising fewer young.
In a recently published study, scientists investigating the endangered southern resident killer whales have made a noteworthy observation: the prevalence of skin disease within this population has shown a significant increase.
Specially designed gardens could reduce the amount of a salmon-killing toxic chemical associated with tires entering our waterways by more than 90 per cent, new research shows.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a formal notice of its intent to sue the Oregon and California state transportation agencies for failing to consider fatal impacts to salmon from toxic tire pollution.
Wildfires have become increasingly frequent due to climate change, with record occurrences in areas not historically prone to them. In California, wildfires and regional power shutoffs have cost billions and taken lives. For some 46 million Americans living next to forests – at what scientists call the “wildland-urban interface” (WUI) – the risks of wildfire can be especially acute.
The breeding season for avian predators, March–August, overlaps with the peak out-migration of juvenile salmon and steelhead, April — August, according to a recent survey of literature that looked specifically at peer-reviewed studies of Caspian terns, double-crested cormorants and gulls that prey on salmonids in the Columbia River basin.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) this week joined U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad to announce an $83 million commitment to rebuild the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, $240 million for Northwest salmon and steelhead hatchery infrastructure, and $60 million for Mitchell Act hatcheries.
In early 2014, a great anomaly descended upon the seas: A patch of warm water that manifested in the Gulf of Alaska. Scientists called it “The Blob.”
As the ocean warms, marine fish are on the move—beyond their traditional habitats and across international boundaries. Understanding these patterns of movement is essential to predicting change and managing climate-resilient fisheries.
Grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have been able to gain the body fat they need for hibernation even as population densities have increased and as climate change and human impacts have changed the availability of some foods, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey and its partners.
A team of Oregon State University researchers is leading a three-year effort to learn more about climate fluctuations in Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary using more than 20 years of oceanographic data.
For the first time, a newly published artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm is allowing researchers to quickly and accurately estimate coastal fish stocks without ever entering the water. This breakthrough could save millions of dollars in annual research and monitoring costs while bringing data access to least-developed countries about the sustainability of their fish stocks.
A new study assesses the marine distribution of dozens of infectious agents in wild Pacific salmon in the marine environment. The novel study reveals where salmon populations have experienced infection “hotspots,” some featuring potentially detrimental pathogens.
Researchers from NOAA Fisheries and University of California Santa Cruz are tagging several groups of juvenile salmon in the Sacramento River system to help measure the benefits from the river’s first “pulse flow.” A pulse flow is a rapid increase and decrease in dam released water designed to resemble natural spring runoff.
A new study offers a comprehensive look at the state of North American wild Chinook salmon. Researchers say findings hold new insights for fisheries managers looking to address wide-ranging declines among Chinook stocks.
The amount of sediment carried by Columbia River waters to the Pacific Ocean has declined by about half since Bonneville Dam was built in 1935. Much of the sediment no longer moved by the river has found a home at the mouths of tributaries, creating shallow sediment fans or deltas where warm water and predators impact juvenile salmon and steelhead, some listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Deteriorating habitat conditions caused by climate change are wreaking havoc with the timing of bird migration.
The Columbia River carries a lot of sediment from the interior. As North America’s largest river by volume flowing into the Pacific Ocean, every year the Columbia transports an estimated 5 million tons of sediment downstream.
The small size and isolation of the endangered population of Southern Resident killer whales in the Pacific Northwest have led to high levels of inbreeding. This inbreeding has contributed to their decline, which has continued as surrounding killer whale populations expand, according to research published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Bald Eagles and dairy farmers exist in a mutually beneficial relationship in parts of northwestern Washington State. According to a new study, this “win-win” relationship has been a more recent development, driven by the impact of climate change on eagles’ traditional winter diet of salmon carcasses, as well as by increased eagle abundance following decades of conservation efforts.
Good years in the Pacific Ocean for salmon and steelhead, as the last couple of years have been, are an anomaly. Instead, ocean conditions are generally trending downward, according to a NOAA Fisheries scientist briefing the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
In the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, scientists have been sounding the alarm about the plight of southern resident orcas. Annual counts show that population numbers, already precarious, have fallen back to mid-1970s levels.
Ecological relationships across the Pacific Coast that once guided annual expectations such as salmon returns are evolving as climate change disrupts long-standing connections. NOAA Fisheries researchers report these findings in their latest Ecosystem Status Report for the California Current Ecosystem.
By returning to spawn in the Sacramento River at different ages, Chinook salmon lessen the potential impact of a bad year and increase the stability of their population in the face of climate variability, according to a new study by scientists at UC Santa Cruz and NOAA Fisheries.
An international collaboration led by Oregon State University scientists has identified 27 global warming accelerators known as amplifying feedback loops, including some that the researchers say may not be fully accounted for in climate models.
Glacier National Park is home to around 50 Canada lynx, more than expected, surprising scientists who recently conducted the first parkwide occupancy survey for the North American cat.
New research examines how Chinook salmon from West Coast rivers travel through the ocean. It shows that endangered Southern Resident killer whales do not have access to as many salmon prey as previously thought.
For an animal whose population barely tops 2,000, Montana’s grizzly bears hold an outsized presence in the psyche and politics of the Treasure State.
Raising sons is an exhausting experience that leaves killer whale mothers far less likely to produce more offspring, new research shows.
Wolves on an Alaskan island caused a deer population to plummet and switched to primarily eating sea otters in just a few years, a finding scientists at Oregon State University and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game believe is the first case of sea otters becoming the primary food source for a land-based predator.
The western bumble bee was once common in western North America, but increasing temperatures, drought, and pesticide use have contributed to a 57% decline in the occurrence of this species in its historical range, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey-led study.
Snow-capped mountains aren’t just scenic – they also provide natural water storage by creating reservoirs of frozen water that slowly melt into watersheds throughout the spring and summer months. Much of the Western U.S. relies on this process to renew and sustain freshwater supplies, and new research underscores the impacts of extreme weather conditions on this annual cycle.
Microplastics—tiny particles generated as plastics weather and fragment—pose a growing threat to ecosystem and human health. A new laboratory study shows these threats extend beyond direct physical or chemical impacts, revealing that the presence of microplastics increases the severity of an important viral fish disease.
There is a “preponderance” of evidence that sea lions and seals (pinnipeds) in Washington’s Salish Sea and outer coast have contributed to the decline of salmon and steelhead in state waters, concludes a recent report by the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
New research shows that the wettest and most extreme winter storms in the Western United States are only growing wetter and larger. These powerful storms are changing shape in a warmer world, sprawling to drench more land while simultaneously growing more intense at their cores.
Climate projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists between 1977 and 2003 were accurate and skillful in predicting subsequent global warming and contradicted the company’s public claims, a new Harvard study shows.
A long-term Pacific Northwest study of landslides, clear-cutting timber and building roads shows that a forest’s management history has a greater impact on how often landslides occur and how severe they are compared to how much water is coursing through a watershed.
Douglas-fir trees will likely experience more stress from drier air as the climate changes than they will from less rain, computer modeling by Oregon State University scientists shows.
A chemical used in the production of toilet paper and ‘forever chemicals’ have been found in the bodies of orcas in British Columbia, including the endangered southern resident killer whales.
Researchers project that most glaciers in western Canada will be gone in 80 years.
More than a century of preserved fish specimens offer a rare glimpse into long-term trends in parasite populations. New research from the University of Washington shows that fish parasites plummeted from 1880 to 2019, a 140-year stretch when Puget Sound — their habitat and the second-largest estuary in the mainland U.S. — warmed significantly.
National parks are the backbone of conservation. Yet mounting evidence shows that many parks are too small to sustain long-term viable populations and maintain essential, large-scale ecological processes, such as large mammal migrations and natural disturbance regimes.
A team of scientists generally gave good marks for a long-term, three-phase plan by the Upper Columbia United Tribes to reintroduce salmon and steelhead upstream of two major Columbia River dams that have blocked passage of the fish for 80 years.
Double-crested cormorants will eat many times more salmon and steelhead per bird as a proportion of their diet the farther they are pushed upstream in the Columbia River estuary, according to a presentation this week at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee meeting.
The growth rate of seafood farming worldwide peaked in 1996, according to new University of British Columbia research, highlighting the importance of rebuilding wild fish stocks to feed future demand.
As climate change worsens water quality and threatens ecosystems, the famous dams of beavers may help lessen the damage.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded Oregon State University and its research partners $4.2 million to investigate how multiple climate change-related stressors are impacting marine ecosystems off the coast of Oregon, Washington and Northern California.
Just as you might look down at the sidewalk as you walk, fish look downward when they swim, a new study by a Northwestern University-led international collaboration has confirmed.
A UCLA-led study published this week reveals that migratory birds across North America are getting smaller, a change the researchers attribute to the rapidly warming climate.
As marine species continue to decline worldwide, the southern resident killer whale population — which now stands at 75 individuals — along the west coast of North America, has baffled scientists who are trying to understand why this population is struggling.
New research from the University of Oxford, Yellowstone National Park, and Penn State, published this week in the journal Science, may have finally solved why wolves change color across the North American continent.
Struggling salmon populations could get some help from the sky. A Washington State University study showed that drone photography of the Wenatchee River during spawning season can be effective in estimating the number of rocky hollows salmon create to lay their eggs, also called “redds.”
Gray whales that migrate along the West Coast of North America continued to decline in number over the last two years, according to a new NOAA Fisheries assessment. The population is now down 38 percent from its peak in 2015 and 2016, as researchers probe the underlying reasons.
Between February and April 2022, five international research vessels participated in the largest ever pan-Pacific research expedition to study the winter ecology of salmon in the North Pacific Ocean.
Since its passage in 1973, the U.S. Endangered Species Act has been the strongest law to prevent species extinctions in the United States, and has served as a model of conservation policy to other nations.
Forecasters are predicting a “three-peat La Niña” this year. This will be the third winter in a row that the Pacific Ocean has been in a La Niña cycle, something that’s happened only twice before in records going back to 1950.
The number of trout in a southern Oregon stream system showed no decline one year after a fire burned almost the entire watershed, including riparian zone trees that had helped maintain optimal stream temperatures for the cold-water fish.
A report published today by a team of scientists from a dozen organizations provides a product designed to boost efforts by land and wildlife managers to restore and conserve the imperiled sagebrush ecosystem across the full extent of its range, which covers more than 165 million acres.
Plastics, now ubiquitous in the modern world, have become a rising threat to human and environmental health. Around the planet, evidence of plastic pollution stretches from grocery bags in the deep sea to microplastics in our food supplies and even in our blood.
A new study led by Oregon State University suggests leaves in forest canopies are not able to cool themselves below the surrounding air temperature, likely meaning trees’ ability to avoid damaging temperature increases, and to pull carbon from the atmosphere, will be compromised in a warmer, drier climate.
Despite decades of resiliency, climate change may put Montana’s popular trout fisheries at risk, according to a new study.
Global fish stocks will not be able to recover to sustainable levels without strong actions to mitigate climate change, a new study has projected.
A new acoustic receiver developed by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory sends near-real-time fish tracking data to the digital cloud, providing timely information to dam operators and decision-makers about when, where, and how many fish are expected to pass through dams.
Stormwater runoff containing a toxic compound from automobile tires that washes into streams is lethal to protected coho salmon, Pacific steelhead, and Chinook salmon, according to new research published today. In contrast, sockeye salmon seem largely unaffected by the same compounds.
As glaciers worldwide retreat due to climate change, managers of national parks need to know what’s on the horizon to prepare for the future. A new study from the University of Washington and the National Park Service measures 38 years of change for glaciers in Kenai Fjords National Park, a stunning jewel about two hours south of Anchorage.
Though federal and state biologists have agreed to stop releasing hatchery winter and summer steelhead into the Hood River basin, a new study says that hatchery fish spawning in the river have little influence on wild winter steelhead productivity. Other variables, such as stream flow, abundance of sea lions in the Columbia River and ocean conditions have more influence than hatchery fish on the river’s spawning grounds.
In the Pacific Northwest, thirteen watersheds are “intensively monitored” to provide key data on regional salmon and steelhead recovery efforts. A new report has mixed messages about the success of habitat restoration in boosting returns of adult fish listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Recently, a group of 23 science and policy experts from the U.S. and Canada published a review of mining risks to watersheds ranging from Montana to British Columbia and Alaska.
Oregon State University researchers will embark this month on a 3½-year partnership with the Yurok Tribe to study what the connections between river quality, water use and the aquatic food web will look like after four Klamath River dams are dismantled.
A new study led by a University of Idaho researcher offers high-resolution details on how Chinook salmon habitats, due to climate change, are being lost on Bear Valley Creek, a headwater stream of the Salmon River in central Idaho.
Animals that live in groups tend to be more protected from predators. That idea might be common sense, but it’s difficult to test for some species, especially for wild populations of fish that live in the ocean.
While researchers have known for years that microplastics exist in Flathead Lake, the concentrations and origins of the microplastic pollution have remained a mystery.
Using future projections of the latest generation of Earth system models, a new study found that most of the world’s ocean is steadily losing its year-to-year memory under global warming.
In the future, cameras could spot blackbirds feeding on grapes in a vineyard and launch drones to drive off the avian irritants, then return to watch for the next invading flock. All without a human nearby.
Two recreational boaters illegally approached endangered Southern Resident killer whales in rented boats last fall. They have agreed to pay fines for violating regulations that protect the whales from vessel traffic and noise.
New research led by an Oregon State University scientist provides the first long-term study of methods to control the spread of wildfire in the sagebrush steppe ecosystem that dominates parts of the western United States.
A new study provides the first direct evidence that translocations of Pacific Lamprey from lower Columbia River dams to the Snake River basin boosted larval abundance, increased juvenile production in the interior Columbia River and demonstrated successful migration to the Pacific Ocean.
Since about 1900 Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula has lost half of its glacier area and since 1980, 35 glaciers and 16 perennial snowfields have disappeared.
Pacific Northwest seafood lovers may see more Humboldt squid but less sockeye salmon on restaurant menus in the near future due to climate change.
In early September 2020, severe winds, high heat, and prolonged drought conditions led to the explosive growth of wildfires along the western slopes of the Cascades Mountains in the Pacific Northwest. The fires engulfed enormous tracts of forestland, destroyed communities, took dozen of lives, and cost hundreds of millions to fight.
Entering another spring season of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead juveniles being moved downriver with much higher spill levels at federal hydropower dams than in the past, the monitoring of results of such operations has become difficult. Higher spill is pushing tagged smolts away from detection facilities, which creates data gaps when measuring the effectiveness of more spill for fish.
In the early morning hours of January 9, 2018, intense rainfall loosened debris and mud in the Santa Ynez mountains, in Santa Barbara County, that had been torched by the Thomas Fire just months before.
The national economy is reenergizing, quite literally. In 2021, Americans used 5% more energy than in 2020, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Current and former researchers with the University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station were part of a scientific team that used modern environmental sensor technology to track freshwaters vital signs in near real time.
Whales are threatened by a variety of human activities off the West Coast of the United States, including fishing, ship traffic, and pollution. Overlap between these stressors can compound effects on whale populations, but are rarely addressed by current whale-protection policies in California, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.
The people, economy, and ecosystems of the Pacific coast states of California, Oregon and Washington are highly dependent on cool-season atmospheric rivers for their annual water supply.
Even the High North can’t escape the global threat of plastic pollution.
A new report shows cooler waters on the West Coast were sandwiched between a marine heatwave and historically hot, dry conditions on land in 2021. NOAA Fisheries researchers from the Northwest and Southwest Fisheries Science Centers presented these findings to the Pacific Fishery Management Coun
A new Cornell University study finds North American white-tailed deer – shown in 2021 surveys of five states to have coronavirus infection rates of up to 40% – shed and transmit the virus for up to five days once infected.
Research on the ground following two large wildfires in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range showed the vast majority of carbon stored in trees before the blazes was still there after the fires.
Decades of logging and fire suppression have left California’s forests prone to drought, infestation and catastrophic wildfire. Climate change is only exacerbating these impacts. But for thousands of years before, during and after European colonization, Indigenous tribes have lived within and among these forests, intentionally lighting fires to manage landscapes and ecosystem mosaics, enhance habitat, produce food and basketry materials, clear trails, reduce pests and support ceremonial practices.
Oregon State University researchers have created a tool to assess the risk of hybridization among native and non-native fish, a development that could aid natural resource managers trying to protect threatened or endangered freshwater fish species.
As the name implies, California market squid are often sold in stores and typically found between Baja California and Monterey Bay. So, the squid’s periodic appearance in the Gulf of Alaska – about 745 miles north of its expected range – has given researchers pause.
The number of hares in a forest is a good indicator of how healthy that ecosystem is — and now there’s a better way to find out.
Mountain regions have a large potential for hydropower that cannot be harnessed effectively by conventional technologies, says the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. IIASA researcher Julian Hunt and an international team of researchers developed an innovative hydropower technology based on electric trucks that could provide a flexible and clean solution for electricity generation in mountainous regions.
Small particles from tires inhibited the growth and caused adverse behavioral changes in organisms found in freshwater and coastal estuary ecosystems, two new Oregon State University studies found.
Farming Atlantic salmon requires a high volume of wild-caught fish as feed but produces only a small percentage of the world’s farmed fish supply.
Change can be hard, especially when it involves soaring summer temperatures, mega-droughts, invasive species and other items from the list of unpleasant outcomes of climate change. In the Western U.S. where skiing, hiking, biking, hunting and other forms of outdoor recreation are core to many people’s lives, and where local economies rely on income generated by these activities, the impacts are already difficult to ignore.
A first-of-its-kind, eight-year study has found widespread and frequent lead poisoning in North American bald and golden eagles impacting both species’ populations.
Research led by Oregon State University shows that fires are more likely to burn their way into national forests than out of them.
If you are a wolf living in Yellowstone National Park, bears mess with you. They show up uninvited and steal kills from your pack. And when scavenging bears drive you away from tasty carcasses, you and your fellow wolves will – strangely enough – kill less often.
The first atlas to measure the movement and thickness of the world’s glaciers gives a clearer, but mixed picture of the globe’s ice-bound freshwater resources, according to researchers from the Institute of Environmental Geosciences and Dartmouth College.
An annual salmon survival study by the Fish Passage Center says increasing smolt-to-adult returns to recovery levels for Snake River salmon and steelhead will require breaching the Lower Snake River dams and increasing spill at lower Columbia River dams.
For the second consecutive year, Oregon and Washington are expecting a big run of eulachon into the Columbia River, and so approved a limited conservation-level commercial test fishery through February.
Hatchery-raised steelhead trout have offspring that are good at gaining size under hatchery conditions but don’t survive as well in streams as steelhead whose parents are wild fish, new research by Oregon State University shows.
A two-year study showed Idaho’s wild steelhead are caught by anglers less often than hatchery fish, and they survive at a very high rate after being caught and released.
Wild steelhead populations in the Olympic Peninsula have declined by more than half since the 1950s.
The International Year of the Salmon (IYS) and the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission have announced the launch of the 2022 IYS Pan-Pacific Winter High Seas Expedition supported by NPAFC member countries (Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America) and partners.
Ecologists need to understand wild animal behaviors in order to conserve species, but following animals around can be expensive, dangerous, or sometimes impossible in the case of animals that move underwater or into areas that can’t be reached easily.
It’s widely understood that animals such as salmon, butterflies and birds have an innate magnetic sense, allowing them to use the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation to places such as feeding and breeding grounds.
In a new study, University of Montana researchers found that climate change drives native trout declines by reducing stream habitat and facilitating the expansion of invasive trout species.
Like humans, wild animals often return to the same places to eat, walk on the same paths to travel and use the same places to raise their young.
NOAA Fisheries is reporting promising news for juvenile salmon – good ocean conditions existed off the West Coast of Oregon and Washington during 2021.
NOAA Fisheries five-year review of the status of Southern Resident killer whales says the species continues to face a high risk of extinction and should remain listed as endangered.
Scientists have detected infection by at least three variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 in free-ranging white-tailed deer in six northeast Ohio locations, a research team has reported.
A year ago the region’s Independent Scientific Advisory Board was tasked with reviewing four scientific issues with important implications for Columbia River basin salmon management. This week the Northwest Power and Conservation Council heard a 75-minute presentation on three of these reviews.
Retreating glaciers in the Pacific mountains of western North America could produce around 6,150 kilometers of new Pacific salmon habitat by the year 2100, according to a new study.
A great many packages of sliced and vacuum-sealed smoked salmon find their way into Danish shopping carts every year. The vast majority of this smoked salmon is sourced from Norwegian aquaculture farms.
How much and how long a severely burned Pacific Northwest mountain landscape stays blanketed in winter snow is a key factor in the return of vegetation, research by Oregon State University and the University of Nevada, Reno shows.
In California’s Sierra Nevada, western pine beetle infestations amped up by global warming were found to kill 30% more ponderosa pine trees than the beetles do under drought alone. A new supercomputer modeling study hints at the grim prospect of future catastrophic tree die-offs and offers insights for mitigating the combined risk of wildfires and insect outbreaks.
Upper Columbia River tribes laid out plans this week that will cost the region about $176 million to reintroduce salmon and steelhead upstream of federal dams. The dams have been blocking access to the fish since Grand Coulee Dam was built in 1942.
More than 94 percent of migrating juvenile yearling chinook salmon pass upper-Columbia River publicly-owned dams safely, according to two studies by two of the dams’ owners.
The most abundant anadromous fish in the Columbia River basin is not salmon, nor is it steelhead. It is non-native shad, which outnumbers the basin’s iconic species in the river by millions of fish.
Each year the Fish Passage Center produces its Comparative Survival Study, a compendium of salmon and steelhead survival and smolt-to-adult return statistics at Columbia and Snake river dams, but in general the FPC fails to say why the statistics are important and how they can be used by others in the region, according to a panel of scientists.
NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad this week announced the breakdown of the nearly $3 billion his agency will receive under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed Monday by President Biden.
Invasive species cause biodiversity loss and about $120 billion in annual damages in the U.S. alone. Despite plentiful evidence that invasive species can change food webs, how invaders disrupt food webs and native species over time has remained unclear.
Mountain snowpacks around the world are on the decline, and if the planet continues to warm, climate models forecast that snowpacks could shrink dramatically and possibly even disappear altogether on certain mountains, including in the western United States, at some point in the next century.
When a massive wildfire tears through a landscape, what happens to the animals?
Early fall wildfires in the western states and the smoke they generate pose a risk to birds migrating in the Pacific Flyway, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey. GPS data from the 2020 wildfire season indicate that at least some migratory birds may take longer and use more energy to avoid wildfire smoke.
While most of the largest U.S. wildfires occur in the Western U.S., almost three-quarters of the smoke-related deaths and visits to the emergency room for asthma occur east of the Rocky Mountains.
Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute has been awarded a $2 million grant to collect data about distribution and density of marine mammals and seabirds that will be used to inform decisions about offshore wind energy development.
A new study of the genetic profiles of wild and hatchery coho salmon demonstrates important distinctions in how the two types of fish form mating pairs.
A popular assumption that there are fewer Chinook salmon during the summer in Canadian waters for southern resident killer whales, compared to an abundance of fish for northern resident killer whales, has been challenged by a study led by scientists at the University of British Columbia.
When warmwater fish species like bass, walleye and crappie that are not native to the Pacific Northwest, but prized by some anglers, overlap with baby spring chinook salmon in reservoirs in Oregon’s Willamette River they consume more baby salmon than native predatory fish per individual, new research found.
A recent study has made a direct connection between the severity of gas bubble trauma in juvenile salmonids caused by total dissolved gas at dams and the pressure experienced in deeper water where the severity of GBT is less.
The body condition of endangered Southern Resident killer whales reflects changes in Chinook salmon numbers in the Fraser River and the Salish Sea. This is according to new research using aerial photogrammetry from drones to track changes in their body condition over time.
The National Marine Fisheries Service denied two petitions this week that, if they had been approved, would have separated spring chinook from the fall chinook evolutionary significant unit along two areas of the Oregon and California coast. The petitions also asked for spring chinook, once separated from its fall chinook ESU, to be listed separately as a threatened or endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Marine heatwaves in the Pacific Ocean will increase in both intensity and duration as will ocean acidification along the Pacific Northwest coast, says the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this week.
Increased abundance of salmon in the inland waters of the Salish Sea increased the odds of endangered Southern Resident killer whales capturing salmon as prey, but increased speeds of nearby boats did just the opposite, according to new research findings.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environment and Climate Change Canada have released their joint “The Health of the Salish Sea Report” analyzing 10 indicators of the health of the Salish Sea, the shared estuary that includes the Strait of Juan De Fuca, Puget Sound, and Georgia Basin.
The suite of contaminants found in the lower Willamette River’s Portland Harbor is impacting growth rates – resulting in smaller fish – and population viability of the threatened upper Willamette wild subyearling spring chinook salmon that rear there. That could mean the smaller fish would be more susceptible to avian predation and less successful at finding their own prey when they reach the lower Columbia River estuary, says a new study.
Pacific lamprey have lived in the Deschutes River basin for millennia and native peoples in the area have counted on the lamprey for thousands of years for their nutrient rich meat. The fish have a tribal significance in their teachings, in their stories and in their ceremonies, says Lyman Jim of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs.
In the United States, climate change is controversial, which makes communicating about the subject a tricky proposition.
The respiratory performance of wild Pacific sockeye salmon functions normally even when infected with piscine orthoreovirus (PRV), according to a new study released this week.
Unregulated contaminants that enter bodies of waters from wastewater treatment plants have biological impacts on fish species, such as chinook salmon, as well as on the endangered population of Southern Resident Orca whales in Puget Sound, according to a recent paper released late last week by the Washington Department of Ecology.
In a review of a controversial 2020 research paper which asserted that chinook salmon decline in West Coast-wide rivers, including the Columbia River, was the same whether a river was dammed or not, scientists said the study’s analysis does indeed support such a claim.
Human-caused wildfire ignitions in Central Oregon are expected to remain steady over the next four decades and lightning-caused ignitions are expected to decline, but the average size of a blaze from either cause is expected to rise, Oregon State University modeling suggests.
Piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) – which is associated with kidney and liver damage in Chinook salmon – is continually being transmitted between open-net salmon farms and wild juvenile Chinook salmon in British Columbia waters, according to a new genomics analysis published this week in Science Advances.
Climate skeptics who aren’t persuaded by the existing evidence from climate change are unlikely to change their minds for many years, according to a newly published quantitative study by a University of Oregon environmental economist.
Juvenile salmon migrating to the sea in the Sacramento River face a gauntlet of hazards in an environment drastically modified by humans, especially with respect to historical patterns of stream flow. Many studies have shown that survival rates of juvenile salmon improve as the amount of water flowing downstream increases, but “more is better” is not a useful guideline for agencies managing competing demands for the available water.
Alterations in the “epigenetic programming” of hatchery-raised steelhead trout could account for their reduced fertility, abnormal health and lower survival rates compared to wild fish, according to a new Washington State University study.
A new study by researchers from Simon Fraser University and Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans reveals the trade-offs of fish biodiversity–its costs and benefits to mixed-stock fisheries–and points to a potential way to harness the benefits while avoiding costs to fishery performance.
From the Pacific Northwest to the Rocky Mountains, summers in the West are marked by wildfires and smoke. New research from the University of Utah ties the worsening trend of extreme poor air quality events in Western regions to wildfire activity, with growing trends of smoke impacting air quality clear into September.
An unprecedented combination of strong easterly winds and low humidity coupled with prolonged drought conditions drove the spread of catastrophic wildfires in the Oregon Cascades last September, a new study has found.
An international, multidisciplinary team that includes faculty members from The University of Texas at Arlington has published a paper in the journal Philosophical Psychology that wades into the debate about whether fish feel pain.
The bypass systems at Columbia/Snake dams for juvenile salmon and steelhead are mostly attracting the smaller fish, which return as adults in lower numbers than larger fish. Is it the size of the fish impacting survival, or “delayed mortality” from dam passage?
Humans cannot live on protein alone – even for the ancient indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest whose diet was once thought to be almost all salmon.
Moving endangered species to new locations is often used as part of species conservation strategies, and can help to restore degraded ecosystems. But scientists say there is a high risk that these relocations are accidentally spreading diseases and parasites.
Older Chinook salmon may die in the ocean more often than previously thought, according to a life cycle simulation created by Alaska researchers.
As the climate warms and more and more cascading streams dry up, changing those streams to disconnected puddles that trap migrating juvenile salmon and steelhead, humans may have to step in to rescue the fish. Without this intervention, some stocks may go extinct, according to a recent study.
NOAA Fisheries is looking into whether Southern Oregon and Northern California coastal spring/fall chinook salmon should be separated, recognizing spring and fall chinook from the Klamath River basin as two separate species.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael S. Regan this week announced his decision to reestablish the membership of the Science Advisory Board (SAB) and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), and reorient the SAB standing committees.
Juvenile salmon run the gamut of predators – birds, other fish and pinnipeds – as they migrate from their rearing grounds far upstream in the Columbia River basin all the way to the ocean, but they also are confronted with predators as they enter the ocean.
The Interior Department last week took steps “to recommit to scientific integrity and empower the agency’s scientific and technical experts to use the best available science.”
The diversity and numbers of wild salmon in Northern B.C. have declined approximately 70 percent over the past century, according to a new Simon Fraser University study.
Scientists at Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service have demonstrated that DNA extracted from water samples from rivers across Oregon and Northern California can be used to estimate genetic diversity of Pacific salmon and trout.
An Oregon State University-led project to build the nation’s first pre-permitted wave energy testing facility cleared a critical hurdle this week as the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management awarded the university a lease to operate in federal waters about seven miles off the Oregon Coast.
Scientists from the University of California, Davis, demonstrate that they can use stable isotopic analysis of the eye lenses of freshwater fish — including threatened and endangered salmon — to reveal a fish’s life history and what it ate along the way.
Scientists at The Marine Mammal Center – the world’s largest marine mammal hospital – have found that viral-caused cancer in adult California sea lions is significantly increased by their exposure to toxins in the environment. The study is the result of over 20 years of research and examination of nearly 400 California sea lion patients by The Marine Mammal Center.
According to a new study examining the effects of removing dams on Washington’s Elwha River, dams do not impact the genetic diversity of steelhead. The findings indicate that steelhead populations cut off from the ocean by dams can rebound and maintain the same natural genetic diversity as fish populations below dams.
Scientists at Oregon State University have found that sampling stream water for evidence of the presence of various species using environmental DNA, known as eDNA, can be more accurate than electrofishing, without disrupting the fish.
When thick, the surface layer of the ocean acts as a buffer to extreme marine heating–but a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder shows this “mixed layer” is becoming shallower each year. The thinner it becomes, the easier it is to warm. The new work could explain recent extreme marine heatwaves, and point at a future of more frequent and destructive ocean warming events as global temperatures continue to climb.
Many of the 100 tagged, hatchery surplus adult summer chinook salmon released in August by the Colville Tribes in the Sanpoil River above Grand Coulee Dam built nests and through tracking have provided important baseline information for the possible reintroduction of salmon and steelhead above Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams.
NOAA Fisheries is currently completing its five-year status review of 17 Pacific Salmon species and 11 steelhead populations listed under the Endangered Species Act, including 13 listed species in the Columbia River Basin. A final report is expected by October.
The region’s Independent Scientific Advisory Board next year will review four scientific issues with important Columbia River basin salmon management implications, including recent research documenting salmon declines in West Coast rivers without major dams, stressing ocean conditions as the key driver of salmon survival.
Across the North Pacific, salmon fisheries are struggling with climate variability, declining fish populations, and a lack of sustainable fishing opportunities. According to a new study from a team of Indigenous leaders and conservation scientists, help lies in revitalizing Indigenous fishing practices and learning from Indigenous systems of salmon management.
Every fall more than half of the coho salmon that return to Puget Sound’s urban streams die before they can spawn. In some streams, all of them die. But scientists didn’t know why.
Pathology reports on more than 50 killer whales stranded over nearly a decade in the northeast Pacific and Hawaii show that orcas face a variety of mortal threats—many stemming from human interactions.
Natural resource managers in British Columbia discovered several adult male and female European green crabs on Haida Gwaii this past July. Alarm bells immediately went off for biologists in Alaska.
Portland State University researchers and their collaborators at the Quinault Indian Nation and Oregon State University found microplastics in Pacific razor clams on Washington’s sparsely populated Olympic Coast — proof, they say, that even in more remote regions, coastal organisms can’t escape plastic contamination.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
