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.
A new study reports that, for several species of oceanic sport fish, individual fish that are caught, released and re-caught are more likely to be caught again than scientists anticipated. The findings raise some interesting questions for policy makers tasked with preserving sustainable fisheries.
A recent study shows that all stocks of chinook salmon are declining along the West Coast at about the same rate and concludes that habitat and dams are not the likely culprits. It’s something far more out of our control: The ocean.
Every year about this time, NOAA Fisheries releases a memo detailing preliminary survival estimates for passage of spring-migrating juvenile salmonids through Snake and Columbia River dams – key data for assessing the impact of federal hydropower operations on 13 species of salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act. This year, however, due to Covid-19 impacts and more spill for fish, that data took a hit.
The Fish Passage Center’s annual Comparative Survival Study, providing smolt-to-adult return data and analysis for Columbia/Snake River salmon and steelhead for 25 years, should include an “impact report” to communicate “the most critical take-home messages” for policymakers.
A new study reveals the damage that a nuclear war might take on wild-caught seafood around the world, from salmon and tuna to the shrimp in shrimp cocktails.
Scientists from several fish and wildlife agencies have launched a rapid research and response effort to tackle a deficiency of thiamine, or Vitamin B1, recently found to be increasing juvenile mortality among chinook salmon in California’s Central Valley.
Historically, spring-run and fall-run chinook salmon have been considered as separate subspecies, races, ecotypes, or even as separate species of fish. A new genetic analysis, however, shows that the timing of migration in chinook salmon is determined entirely by differences in one short stretch of DNA in their genomes.
Spawn timing for wild chinook salmon in the Skagit River system in Washington is slowly occurring later in the year as the river warms due to climate change, a finding that fits with previous research. However, the trend for hatchery-origin stray chinook salmon in the same river is towards earlier spawning, according to a recent study.
Endangered steelhead in California might use its internal clock to decide when to migrate, according to a study by the University of Cincinnati.
Pacific lamprey is a relatively understudied species compared to other anadromous fish, such as salmon and steelhead. Basic biological information has been lacking and there is still uncertainty regarding its life history diversity.
Wastewater containing coronaviruses may be a serious threat, according to a new, global study led by researchers from the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).
The size of salmon returning to rivers in Alaska has declined dramatically over the past 60 years because they are spending fewer years at sea, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
People hoping to get a handle on future droughts in the American West are in for a disappointment, as new University of Southern California-led research spanning centuries shows El Niño cycles are an unreliable predictor.
Marine heatwaves across the world’s oceans can displace habitat for sea turtles, whales, and other marine life by 10s to thousands of kilometers. They dramatically shift these animals’ preferred temperatures in a fraction of the time that climate change is expected to do, new research shows.
To get a better idea of how much predation plays in steelhead populations, a couple of Nez Perce Tribe Fisheries biologists began looking for clues at a heron rookery on northeast Oregon’s Wallowa River.
To aid a research project, Idaho steelhead anglers are once again being asked to watch for tagged steelhead they might catch during the 2020-21 steelhead fishing seasons, and report tagged fish if they catch one.
Steelhead trout stir up the sediment of the river bed when building their spawning pits, thus influencing the composition of the river bed and the transport of sediment. Until now, this process could only be studied visually, irregularly and with great effort in the natural environment of the fish.
In their zeal to promote the importance of climate change as an ecological driver, climate scientists increasingly are ignoring the profound role that indigenous peoples played in fire and vegetation dynamics, not only in the eastern United States but worldwide, according to a Penn State researcher.
A new University of Alaska-led study provides the first evidence that declines in many of Alaska’s chinook salmon populations can be attributed in part to climate-driven changes in their freshwater habitats.
Caspian tern predation on steelhead smolts in the Columbia River has reduced the size of the juvenile migration by more than 20 percent each year also has reduced the number of adult steelhead that return to the river several years later.
Microplastic pollution in marine environments is concentrated most highly in coastal habitats, especially fjords and estuaries, according to a new review article.
Adult chinook salmon are returning from the ocean to rivers along North America’s West Coast at younger ages and smaller sizes (about 5 to 8 percent in the Yukon River) since the 1970s. The smaller size is resulting in a drop in reproductive potential for female salmon by 24 to 35 percent, based on total egg mass per female, according to a recent study.
Fish exposed to very low levels of chemicals commonly found in waterways can pass the impacts on to future generations that were never directly exposed to the chemicals, according to Oregon State University researchers.
Since their reintroduction to the Pacific coast in the 1970s, the sea otters’ rapid recovery and voracious appetite for tasty shellfish such as urchins, clams and crabs has brought them into conflict with coastal communities and fishers, who rely on the same valuable fisheries for food and income.
When drought reshuffles the green-up of habitats that mule deer migrate across, it dramatically shortens the annual foraging bonanza they rely on.
There is truth in the saying “you are what you eat”; even more so if you are a salmon or herring swimming off the British Columbia coast, a recent University of British Columbia study discovered.
The Center for Whale Research reported in January 2020 that L41, also known as “Mega”, is missing from L-pod — one of three family groups of the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales.
The northeast Pacific Ocean from the Fraser River to the Bering Sea is warming, but it is also becoming more crowded with hatchery pink and chum salmon produced in Alaska and Russia. The competition for food by hatchery pink salmon in a warming ocean has resulted in a 15 percent drop in survival of sockeye salmon returning to the Fraser River and other streams in British Columbia, according to a study released this week.
Ocean temperatures that in 2015 and 2016 were abnormally warm – at times more than 2.5 degrees Celsius higher than normal – stressed juvenile steelhead just entering the California Current and impacted their size and condition. Most of the change occurred in the first few days after ocean entry, according to a recent study.
A recent study found that the stray rates of returning natural origin salmon and steelhead in the upper Columbia River basin differ by river basin, sub-basin and by stream, with the larger the area the lower the straying percentage.
Discussions of drought often center on the lack of precipitation. But among climate scientists, the focus is shifting to include the growing role that warming temperatures are playing as potent drivers of greater aridity and drought intensification.
Researchers in Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences have taken a step closer to solving one of nature’s most remarkable mysteries: How do salmon, when it’s time to spawn, find their way back from distant ocean locations to the stream where they hatched?
A science panel says a key ongoing salmon survival study should better take into account potential impacts of climate change on future flows and environmental conditions in the Columbia/Snake river basin.
University of Colorado researchers have developed a method that could enable scientists to accurately forecast ocean acidity up to five years in advance. This would enable fisheries and communities that depend on seafood negatively affected by ocean acidification to adapt to changing conditions in real time, improving economic and food security in the next few decades.
Three years of “health check-ups” on Oregon’s summer resident gray whales shows a compelling relationship between whales’ overall body condition and changing ocean conditions that likely limited availability of prey for the mammals, a new study from Oregon State University indicates.
Weakened wind patterns likely spurred the wave of extreme ocean heat that swept the North Pacific last summer, according to new research led by the University of Colorado Boulder and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.
In a sampling of fish from a creek that flows into San Diego Bay, nearly a quarter contain microplastics, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE. The study, which examined plastics in coastal sediments and three species of fish, showed that the frequency and types of plastic ingested varied with fish species and, in some cases, size or age of fish.
Once the run is complete, a biologist with the Washington fishery department said that some 7.5 million pounds of eulachon, also known as Pacific smelt, will have entered the Columbia River. That’s 3 million pounds more than showed up in 2019.
A new Simon Fraser University-led study looking at the effects that glacier retreat will have on western North American Pacific salmon predicts that while some salmon populations may struggle, others may benefit.
The physical condition of a female steelhead at its first spawning can predict the ability of the fish to spawn a second time a year later, according to a recent study that measured body chemicals and condition in female hatchery fish.
Across the globe, humans are using freshwater resources faster than those resources can be naturally replenished. In the Western United States, for example, water extractions from the Colorado River have exceeded total river flow, causing rapid depletion of water storage reservoirs. In addition, as these water sources dry up, species of fish, plants and animals are also adversely impacted.
For the first time, researchers have used radar and other tools to accurately measure the volume of snow produced through cloud seeding.
In 2014, a disease of epidemic proportions gripped the West Coast of the U.S. You may not have noticed, though, unless you were underwater.
Steelhead reared in a hatchery for one year consistently outperformed males reared in the hatchery for two years when competing for spawning opportunities, although one and two year old female steelhead did not differ in their ability to produce offspring, according to recent study.
Chinook salmon smolts that rear in upper Willamette River reservoirs grow much faster and are larger than their counterparts that rear in streams, according to a recent study.
A large-scale and long-term monitoring of habitat restoration projects in the state of Washington found that the size and depth of pools created by the restoration projects failed to fully remain in place after year 10 at 23 monitored projects.
A recent study examining salmon hatchery operations practices in the Salish Sea (Puget Sound) in Washington State for the past 65 years finds that current practices are releasing juvenile salmon at a larger size than in the past – a size preferred by predators – and with decreasing diversity. It calls for a consideration of modifying hatchery programs to allow for more diversity by reducing this size homogenization.
There’s a long-standing belief in the freshwater fishing community that once anglers find it too hard to land a particular fish for their dinner plate, they either move on to fishing for different species or fish in new waters, giving depleted populations time to rebound.
The survival of juvenile Snake River salmon and steelhead and their eventual return to spawning streams as adults depends more on the juveniles’ size than the way they pass through hydroelectric dams on their migration to the ocean, new research shows.
A panel of scientists completed a review of the Upper Columbia United Tribes’ phase 1 report that describes the feasibility of reintroducing salmon and steelhead into the reaches of the Columbia River upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams.
The addition of steelhead carcasses to tributaries of the Grande Ronde River in northeastern Oregon resulted in short-term increases in the growth rates, body condition and size of juvenile chinook salmon and steelhead, factors that may contribute to their survival, according to a recent study.
Natural abundance potential of spring/summer chinook salmon in the Middle Fork Salmon River of Idaho recalculated by three biologists is far higher than most current management goals for the fish by NOAA Fisheries, the Nez Perce Tribe and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, according to a recent study.
New genetic research has identified fin whales in the northern Pacific Ocean as a separate subspecies, reflecting a revolution in marine mammal taxonomy as scientists unravel the genetics of enormous animals otherwise too large to fit into laboratories.
Traditionally it was thought that warm coastal water temperatures in Alaska were considered beneficial for salmon productivity, while the opposite was true off the coasts of British Columbia and Washington State where warmer temperatures were not as good for salmon.
The Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 and the tsunamis it spawned may have washed a tropical fungus ashore, leading to a subsequent outbreak of often-fatal infections among people in coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest, according to a paper co-authored by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the nonprofit Translational Genomics Research Institute.
Three conservation organizations this week petitioned NOAA Fisheries to list spring chinook salmon along much of the Oregon Coast south of the Columbia River as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The annual budget for a panel of scientists that review fish and wildlife projects and regional research issues was cut by almost $200,000 by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting in Corvallis, Sept. 18, and the cost savings could be used for Northern pike monitoring and suppression, according to Council staff.
NOAA Fisheries is proposing to expand critical habitat for Southern Resident killer whales along the West Coast, based on information about their coastal range and habitat use.
Technological advances are allowing commercial fishing fleets to double their fishing power every 35 years and put even more pressure on dwindling fish stocks, new research has found.
The hoary bat, the species of bat most frequently found dead at wind power facilities, is declining at a rate that threatens its long-term future in the Pacific Northwest, according to a novel and comprehensive research collaboration based at Oregon State University – Cascades (Bend).
To a certain extent, coho salmon smolts can withstand temperatures somewhat higher than previously thought to be optimal for survival and growth, and, in fact, will even grow faster and larger in higher temperatures, although survival may drop. However, the important variable in their growth over summer periods is the availability and abundance of invertebrate prey for the young salmon to eat, according to a recent study.
Three new viruses—including one from a group of viruses never before shown to infect fish—have been discovered in endangered chinook and sockeye salmon populations.
With warming temperatures, average snowfall frequency is estimated to decline across the Pacific Northwest by 2100 — and at a faster rate if greenhouse emissions are not reduced, according to a new Portland State University study.
In what the lead author says is a “thought experiment,” a new study says that solar and photovoltaic arrays – many on the site of former dams – could produce enough power to replace most hydroelectric dams in the United States, giving salmon, sturgeon, shad and other fish runs unimpeded access to spawning grounds.
Glacier-fed rivers in northern Canada may be consuming significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to new research by University of Alberta biologists.
Steelhead repeat spawners, known as kelts, grow quickly with greater blood fat levels soon after their first spawning, a signal that they will repeat spawning in the first year, according to a recent study.
Irrigation diversions move some water into a canal or pipeline where it can be used for irrigation, but they pose challenges for fish due to changes in water flow, damaged habitats, and blocked migration routes. A specific concern are the millions of fish that could be “entrained” or travel into a harmful environment and outside the natural flow of water because of such structures.
Hatchery females and larger chinook salmon are less likely to return to their hatchery of origin than they are to spawn naturally with wild fish in the Elk Creek basin on the Oregon Coast, even as smaller chinook and males tend to return to the hatchery, according to a recent study.
Some 48 fish and wildlife projects that will cost $43.5 million each year – hatchery work, data management, research — were reviewed and approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee at its meeting this week in Butte, Montana.
A recent study combined ecological analysis with the social sciences, identifying a critical link between fish abundance, angler behavior and management actions.
In Oregon’s fertile Willamette River Basin, where two-thirds of the state’s population lives, managing water scarcity would be more effective if conservation measures were introduced in advance and upstream from the locations where droughts are likely to cause shortages, according to a new study.
Nearly 18,000 river kilometers (11,185 miles) of Columbia River basin streams currently has suitable habitat for an invasive predatory fish that, as climate warms, is a range that is predicted to increase by 10,000 river miles by 2080, according to a recent study.
Oregon has overestimated the historical number of coho salmon that ultimately spawned in coastal streams, according to the conclusions of a recent study, and it is likely that the number of coho spawning in Columbia River basin streams has also been overestimated.
A new study finds that the world’s marine fisheries form a single network, with over $10 billion worth of fish each year being caught in a country other than the one in which it spawned.
Recently completed research is throwing light on why steelhead with seemingly identical genetic makeup – hatchery produced and natural populations – perform differently in the wild, impacting lifetime fitness.
An ample buffet of freshwater food, brought on by climate change, is altering the life history of one of the world’s most important salmon species.
Washington tribes and state government first detected the presence of northern pike in Lake Roosevelt, the huge reservoir created by Grand Coulee Dam, in 2007 and have ramped up suppression efforts in the lake since 2014.
Recent research documented transoceanic migration in Pacific Lampreys for the first time, with one tagged lamprey traveling from the Bering Sea to the Columbia River.
Just over one-third (37 percent) of the world’s 246 longest rivers remain free-flowing, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Nature.
Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history — and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, warns a landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Without sound decision-making, responses to seeming environmental tragedies can often make matters worse, according to ethicists who analyzed a controversial goat removal program on an Australian island.
Federally-sponsored science plays a more significant role in bringing together stakeholders and facilitating environmental governance debates than all other types of research, according to an international team of researchers.
Heavy rain over the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia and the eastern Pacific Ocean is a good indicator that temperatures in central California will reach 100 degrees in four to 16 days, according to a collaborative research team from the University of California Davis and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Climate Center in Busan, South Korea.
Coastal waters are cooling and attracting higher value, more fat-rich food — a good sign for salmon, steelhead and ocean predators, such as Orcas — after several years of unusually warm conditions (2014 – 2016), when the warm water “blob” dominated coastal conditions, according to a report released last week by NOAA Fisheries.
Findings from tests of five Columbia River fish species “intended for the dinner table” show alarming levels of heavy metals, toxic flame retardants, cancer-causing PCBs, and endocrine disrupting chemicals, according to results of a Phase 2 study, “Is Your Fish Toxic?”
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