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

Killer whales or orca have been observed hunting with Pacific white-sided dolphins in the waters off British Columbia, Canada and sharing fish scraps with them after making a kill, according to research published in Scientific Reports. The authors suggest that the findings represent the first documented recording of cooperative hunting between orca and dolphins.

New research uses more than 40 years of data from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat satellites to help dam operators improve the health of salmon fisheries.

California’s Wildlife Conservation Board has approved $87,125,538 in grants for 16 projects across 14 counties to protect critical wildlife habitat, restore rivers and streams, and conserve culturally and ecologically significant lands.

During the annual salmon run last fall, University of Washington researchers pulled salmon DNA out of thin air and used it to estimate the number of fish that passed through the adjacent river. Aden Yincheong Ip, a UW research scientist of marine and environmental affairs, began formulating the driving hypothesis for the study while hiking on the Olympic Peninsula.

A Chinese mitten crab, a prohibited species in Oregon, was found in the Willamette River near Portland’s Sellwood Bridge and reported to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on Nov. 17.

A new paper in Biology Methods and Protocols, published by Oxford University Press, finds that researchers can now distinguish wild from farmed salmon using “deep learning,” potentially greatly improving strategies for environmental protection.

Details of the proposal for a 100-mile high tension power line that would be laid beneath the Columbia River, rather than travel over land, was aired last week by developers of the project in three public meetings.

Floating solar panels are emerging as a promising clean energy solution with environmental benefits, but a new study finds those effects vary significantly depending on where the systems are deployed.

Wild wolves living in Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Territory on BC’s central coast have learned to pull crab traps out of the ocean—behavior that represents the first documented case of potential tool use in the species, according to a new study.

For a century there have been just five places in the continental United States with year-round frozen peaks — all in Washington state. But newly published research documents that these ice-capped summits are changing — melting — faster than many thought possible.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has published preliminary harvest and value figures for the 2025 Alaska Commercial Salmon Fishery.

A forest practices rule targeting small, non-fish bearing perennial streams in western Washington was approved by the state’s Forest Practices Board Nov. 12. The rule includes wider logging buffers and provides options to reduce warming in the streams that are generally found in higher elevations where the streams originate, but which feed larger streams that host trout, salmon and steelhead.

A satellite imagery analysis shows that the 2021 “heat dome” scorched almost 5% of the forested area in western Oregon and western Washington, turning foliage in canopies from a healthy green to red or orange, sometimes within a matter of hours.

The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the Trump administration for what it says is a failure to decide whether to protect Olympic marmots, a rare species that lives only on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. The marmots are threatened by climate change and predation by coyotes.

2024 was the hottest year on record and likely the hottest in at least 125,000 years, according to an annual report issued by an international coalition led by Oregon State University scientists.

Following an “unprecedented” level of livestock attacks across the Sierra Valley, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has lethally removed four gray wolves from the Beyem Seyo pack. This action follows months of intensive non-lethal management efforts to reduce livestock loss and, the agency says, “is grounded in the best available science and understanding of wolf biology.”

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and its partners have initiated a second year of spring-run Chinook salmon reintroduction efforts into historic habitat in the North Yuba River.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife fishery managers will hold two virtual town halls on coastal steelhead to review 2024-25 returns, present 2025-26 run forecasts, and summarize proposed fishing regulations.

A large habitat restoration effort is set to begin this fall on northern Idaho’s Pack River delta, continuing work to improve fish and wildlife habitat in Lake Pend Oreille. Construction on the third phase of the project will begin late this month or early next month, just east of the area locals refer to as Mud Lake.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and California Trout, joined by several community and conservation partners, invite the public to join in celebrating the fall return of Chinook salmon to the Shasta River in the Klamath Basin.

Before bear spray, encounters between people and bears often ended in bullets. That changed when graduate student Carrie Hunt developed the life-saving deterrent at the University of Montana in the 1980s.

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

The 2025 Northern Pikeminnow Sport-Reward Fishery season has been extended through Oct. 12 at select registration stations. The reward program, funded by Bonneville Power Administration, pays anglers to catch predatory northern pikeminnow, a native fish that consumes millions of juvenile salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers each year.

The Columbia River adult fall chinook return is decent this year for the most part, based on passage numbers at Bonneville Dam, but warm water temperatures are making it hard on the fish moving toward the lower Snake River and Upper Columbia.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has confirmed the presence of the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome on two bats captured at Libby Dam in Lincoln County.

Idaho Fish and Game is launching a conservation project this fall to protect native Yellowstone cutthroat trout in the Teton River Canyon. On Oct. 8, biologists will conduct a rotenone treatment on the lower 5.5 miles of Badger Creek to reduce non-native rainbow trout that pose a threat to the genetic integrity of native cutthroat.

The Washington Department of Ecology issued an official rebuke of a draft report by the U.S. Department of Energy being used to justify the Trump Administration’s rollback of federal climate regulations. At the same time, Ecology also released a new analysis that details worsening local impacts now and in the future due to rising global emissions.

Oregon may soon have a new wildlife area in Union County called the Qapqápa Wildlife Area (pronounced cop-COP-a). The property would be owned by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and co-managed with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, continuing a decades-long partnership.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recent legislatively adopted budget did not include funding to continue the operation of Salmon River Hatchery near Lincoln City, one of more than 30 hatcheries that ODFW maintains in the state.

The Trump administration released draft plans that could strip away protections for the greater sage grouse on about 50 million acres of public lands across the West. The Obama- and Biden-era greater sage grouse proposals were intended to prevent the extinction of the iconic dancing bird.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, has issued a five-year construction license to the Benton Conservation District for the Amon Creek Habitat Restoration Project, a $1.2 million initiative aimed at improving fish habitat and migration conditions at the Yakima Delta Habitat Management Unit near McNary Lock and Dam.

With what may have been the last round of federal funding support, a research team gathered offshore monitoring data throughout Puget Sound once more this summer.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins this week announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken the next step in the rulemaking process for rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule by opening a public comment period.

Idaho’s wolves will remain under state authority despite a judge’s recent decision that calls for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider a previous determination that relisting wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming under the Endangered Species Act was not warranted.

Pollinators like honey bees require healthy food to survive and thrive. To learn more about the pollen they gather and the nutrients within it, Washington State University is leading a new endeavor dubbed the Pacific Northwest Pollen Atlas.

A collaborative research and outreach effort led by Oregon State University to protect whales and sustain Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab fishery has been recognized as one of four regional winners of the 2025 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award.

For many reasons, 2023 was the “Holy Grail Year” for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ pallid sturgeon recovery efforts in the Yellowstone River drainage. That’s fisheries manager Mike Backes’ term for it. Fisheries crews were able to validate the spawning of two wild heritage females with a wild heritage male and an unknown male in the Tongue River after capturing larvae that matched the parental genetics from three of the fish.

The Bonneville Power Administration says its third quarter financial report indicates the agency’s fiscal position remains positive. Despite seeing some decline in positive net revenues and end-of-year days cash on hand since the second quarter forecast, the agency “continues to see encouraging key performance indicators for its finances.”

The Colville Tribes and the Tribes’ project partners, the Spokane Tribe and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, have been reintroducing Chinook salmon to the waters upstream of Grand Coulee Dam since 2017. On July 8th, a juvenile Chinook salmon was caught and photographed in the Kettle River, just downstream from Cascade Falls in British Columbia. It’s the first report of a Chinook in the Kettle River since the reintroduction began.

The deadly, record-breaking heat wave that hit the Pacific Northwest in June 2021 continues to be the subject of intense interest among scientists, policy makers and the public. A new study from some of the region’s top climate scientists synthesized more than 70 publications addressing the causes and consequences of the extreme heat wave and the potential for similar high-heat events to happen in the future.

A federal district court in Missoula has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that gray wolves in the western U.S. do not warrant federal protections. The ruling means that the Service’s finding that gray wolves in the West do not qualify for listing is vacated and sent back to the agency for a new decision, consistent with the ESA and best available science.

The Bonneville Power Administration say it is “strategically raising power and transmission rates to meet customer needs and support national priorities for more abundant, reliable and secure energy.”

The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the Trump administration for “delaying critically needed Endangered Species Act protections” for the Crater Lake newt. The newts live only in Oregon’s Crater Lake, and their population has crashed to as few as 13 animals in recent years because of the introduction of signal crayfish and warming lake temperatures from climate change, says the Center.

Recent results from white sturgeon monitoring surveys by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife suggest the white sturgeon population has continued to decline. CDFW fisheries biologists now estimate there are approximately 6,500 white sturgeon between 40-60 inches long in California — down sharply from the previous estimate of approximately 30,000 fish in that size range, based on the 2016-2021 survey average.

Aaron Goettsche is no stranger to monster Lake Trout. An avid angler, fishing rod maker, and longtime veteran on Utah’s/Wyoming’s famous Flaming Gorge Reservoir – a world-renowned fishery known for producing Lake Trout over 30 pounds and occasional giants up to 60 – Aaron knows what a trophy looks like.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has hired Peter Cogswell as its new executive director. Cogswell’s first day at the Council will be Monday, July 7th.

Cultivated salmon is now being served at Kann, a Haitian restaurant in Portland, Oregon, led by the culinary talents of James Beard award-winning Chef Gregory Gourdet. This milestone marks the very first for cultivated seafood anywhere in the world, signaling meaningful progress in bringing cultivated meat and seafood from pilot facilities into real-world kitchens.

Lookingglass Creek, a tributary to northeast Oregon’s Grande Ronde River at Palmer Junction, opened for spring Chinook fishing from Wednesday, June 18 through Sunday, June 29. The open area is from the mouth upstream to the confluence of Jarboe Creek.

A new University of Washington–led study projects that in the next 35 years increasing boreal fires will actually slow global warming by 12% globally and 38% in the Arctic. Because the aerosols in smoke reflect more sunlight and make clouds brighter, summer temperatures during fire season drop, leading to reduced sea ice loss and cooler winter temperatures.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that it is launching a summer strike team in partnership with federal and local agencies to combat livestock depredations by gray wolves in Siskiyou County and the Sierra Valley (spanning both Sierra and Plumas counties).

Montana Wild Wings Recovery Center in Kalispell has treated six bald eagles and one golden eagle with elevated lead levels in 2025.

Reaction was swift over President Trump’s decision to terminate the federal government’s “Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement,” with parties both condemning and celebrating the move.

At a June 4 hearing, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, questioned Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on the decision to eliminate the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. The proposal is included in President Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget request for the department.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has captured invasive European green crabs (EGC) at two new locations between northern Hood Canal and Admiralty Inlet during an early detection trapping effort.

What do western Oregonians think about the five iconic protected areas, known as marine reserves, that dot the state’s coastline? A new study shows the answer depends on when and where the question was asked.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is ramping up its efforts to protect the state’s lakes, rivers, and streams from aquatic invasive species. Seasonal boat inspection stations are now open, and roving crews will be out this year at boat ramps offering watercraft inspections and decontamination.

This spring, the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership broke ground on a large-scale salmon habitat restoration project on the lower East Fork Lewis River in Washington State. This project will support the recovery of threatened steelhead and salmon on one of the few undammed rivers in the Lower Columbia River watershed.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says forecasted 2025 total Alaska commercial salmon harvest will be approximately 214.6 million fish, which is 111 million more salmon than the 2024 harvest.

A novel analysis suggests more than 3,500 animal species are threatened by climate change and also sheds light on huge gaps in fully understanding the risk to the animal kingdom.

Higher than expected revenues, lower expenses and debt management have resulted in the Bonneville Power Administration forecasting net revenues of $210 million, $70 million above agency targets. The encouraging results improve on the first quarter net revenue forecast of negative $44 million, which was impacted by the dry winter weather.

New research reveals mountain glaciers across the globe will not recover for centuries – even if human intervention cools the planet back to the 1.5°C limit, having exceeded it.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation are extending the public comment period for the Columbia River System Operations Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to August 15, 2025.

Scientists say human-caused climate change led to 15,000 additional deaths from wildfire air pollution in the continental United States during the 15-year period ending in 2020.

The Center for Biological Diversity has notified the Trump administration that it intends to sue over what it says is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to protect the imperiled Crater Lake newt under the Endangered Species Act. The newts live only in central Oregon’s Crater Lake, and their population has collapsed in recent years because of the expansion of introduced signal crayfish and warming lake temperatures from climate change.

The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the Trump administration for what it says is a failure to release public records about ocean conservation work “interrupted by firings and layoffs” at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Based on an extensive aerial survey of Oregon’s forests completed last year by the Oregon Department of Forestry and the USDA Forest Service, a new report shows that drought, insect pests, and tree diseases continue to be the biggest threats to the state’s trees.

Anglers in Washington can expect similar salmon fishing opportunities in 2025-2026 compared to last season, that also includes a strong Puget Sound pink forecast, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife fishery managers announced this week.

American Rivers this week announced America’s Most Endangered Rivers in its 40th annual listing, with Idaho’s Clearwater River Basin ranked the seventh most endangered.

The number of gray wolf packs in Washington increased slightly in 2024, according to the Washington Gray Wolf Conservation and Management 2024 Annual Report, released by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, while the state’s wolf count declined overall. Based on wolf biology and long-term population trajectory, WDFW wolf biologists do not believe wolf recovery is threatened at this time.

Fishery managers from Oregon and Washington took joint state action Wednesday (April 9) to add another six days of recreational spring Chinook salmon fishing in the mainstem Columbia River downstream of Bonneville Dam. This fishery had closed on Monday April 7 per the preseason schedule adopted in February. 

The Bureau of Reclamation today announced a $134 million award for the proposed Sites Reservoir Project. This new water storage project would be the second largest off-stream reservoir in the nation and would increase Northern California’s water storage capacity by up to 15 percent.