A 20-year Nez Perce Tribe effort to reintroduce coho salmon in the Snake River basin has shown steady progress, but this year is riding a particularly high wave as tens of thousands of the shiny fish are surging up the Columbia and Snake rivers on the way to the Clearwater River and tributaries.
A record surge of returning spawners allowed the Idaho Fish and Game Commission on Wednesday to approve the first-ever fishery in the Clearwater River drainage to specifically target coho salmon.
With the Columbia River fall chinook salmon return nudging up close to the modern-day record, and a coho return much better than forecast in preseason, fishing was very good this late summer and fall on the lower river and elsewhere.
For the past 22 years, Boise-based Idaho Power has managed flows below its Hells Canyon Dam on the lower Snake River to provide stable conditions for spawning fall chinook salmon.
Composition of gravel or depth of a spawning redd have far less impact on the survival of kokanee fry emerging from the gravel at the lake’s edge than does water flowing into or out of the redds through upwelling or downwelling.
Restoring ecosystems and wild fish are major themes spelled out in the latest version of the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, a set of strategies developed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council over the past year and approved Wednesday during the panel’s meeting in Pendleton, Ore.
The Columbia River Compact on Wednesday approved a new round of commercial fisheries for both tribal and non-Indian commercial netters on the mainstem Columbia that will likely bring to a close what has been a record-breaking harvest on a near-record return of chinook salmon and a revived coho salmon run.
Commercial fishermen say that an Oregon-Washington strategy aimed at moving gill-netters off the mainstem Columbia River is accomplishing neither of its proclaimed purposes – to reduce impacts on salmon and steelhead that are listed under the Endangered Species Act while, at the least, maintaining the economic benefits for their industry.
A near record upriver fall chinook salmon run up the Columbia River, and burgeoning coho salmon numbers, enabled the states of Oregon and Washington, in a joint decision made Wednesday, to add another chapter to the fall commercial fishing season for treaty fishers.
With an abundance of returning spawners expected, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced a relatively rare opening for anglers to target coho salmon beginning Saturday in the upper Columbia River from south-central Washington’s Priest Rapids Dam upstream nearly 150 miles to Chief Joseph Dam.
Endangered Species Act “recovery” of beleaguered Columbia River basin salmon stocks is in sight, say federal, state and tribal officials, as the result of past and ongoing collaborative efforts.
By the end of this week, an estimated 239,000 fall chinook salmon will have been harvested in 2014 by treaty tribes, mostly in Columbia River reservoirs upstream of Bonneville Dam.
Efforts to restore greatly depleted populations of Pacific lamprey to the interior Columbia-Snake river basin could be aided by reading so-called genetic markers that tell researchers which of the spawners returning from the Pacific Ocean are best fitted for the arduous journey upstream, according to a research paper posted online this week in the scientific journal, Evolutionary Applications.
A study to determine the number of spawning adult white sturgeon in an area of the upper Columbia River) that straddles the Canadian and U.S. border will help fisheries managers in the recovery efforts for the endangered fish.
Higher summer water temperatures in the lower Columbia River as it flows downstream from Bonneville Dam and into the Columbia River estuary do not necessarily result in deteriorating physical condition for subyearling chinook salmon, according to a recent study.
— From Tom Stuart, Boise:
The hatchery-based ICU rescue effort of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, NOAA and Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribe is indeed an exceptional effort.
Tribal and non-tribal commercial fishers, as well as lower Columbia River anglers, are sweeping in tens of thousands of salmon this year even while fishery managers keep a close watch on impacts to protected stocks such so-called “B” steelhead bound for the most part Idaho and wild Lower River Hatchery fall chinook salmon “tules.”
State fisheries managers are working to limit the spread of invasive New Zealand mudsnails recently found at the Ringold Hatchery, which is located north of Richland, Wash., on the Columbia River upstream of McNary Dam.
This year’s sockeye salmon return to central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley is the most numerous, and still rising, since at least 1962 with a total of 1,434 trapped, examined and sampled.
The k] cpә’lk’ stim’ Salmon Hatchery, part of the Okanagan Nation Alliance sockeye reintroduction program, will have its grand opening beginning at 1 p.m.. The hatchery is located on the Penticton Indian Band reserve lands in Penticton, British Columbia.
Good fishing and good weather throughout September means that sport fishers off the coasts of Oregon and Washington will have caught their 2014 coho quota within the next few days, forcing an early closure.
The surge of spawning salmon up and over the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam have in recent days been of record proportions – at least in daily terms.
Hatchery populations of spring chinook salmon in the subbasins of the upper Willamette River are genetically similar to the wild populations in these basins and should continue to be used for recovery of spring chinook salmon.
Of three conservation strategies, adding decaying salmon carcasses and the nutrients they provide to a stream is the most effective for promoting the production of wild juvenile chinook salmon.
NOAA Fisheries on Thursday released for public comment a final Environmental Impact Statement that it says will help guide future decisions for Columbia River salmon and steelhead hatchery programs funded with federal appropriations under the Mitchell Act.
Fall chinook salmon fish count at Columbia River hydro project thus far in the 2014 season are lagging, but sport and commercial fishers alike are hopeful that a burst of fish is in the offing that could lift the run to record proportions.
Like their upper Columbia River cousins, Snake River sockeye salmon are setting modern-day records for numbers of returning spawners.
A hatchery supplementation program for endangered winter chinook salmon is achieving estimated survival rates of hatchery fry through the end of the first year in the ocean that is about four times greater than the survival for the program’s natural origin counterparts, according to a study by NOAA Fisheries scientists.
A primary source of cool water used to improve Snake River salmon summertime migration conditions was pinched Aug. 15, leaving fish and hydro system management representatives to debate how to make the best out of a bad situation.
It does appear that the fall chinook returns are slowly beginning to grow.
A total of 23,401 fall chinook have been counted at Bonneville Dam through Tuesday with daily counts from 966 fish on Saturday to 4,455 on Monday, but trending downward — 2,570 on Tuesday, 1,775 Wednesday and 1,076 Thursday.
The Columbia River Compact last week gave the green light to the first commercial “seine” fishing for salmon on the lower Columbia River mainstem since the nets were prohibited under state law by Washington in 1935 and by Oregon in 1950.
Treatment of the always simmering hatchery vs. wild salmon issue was at the forefront recently as the Northwest Power and Conservation Council began deliberations about shaping its next Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program earlier this month.
Fisheries managers with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game are assessing damage to summer chinook stocks after severe thunderstorms producing heavy rain flushed large amounts of sediment into the South Fork Salmon River.
After nearly six years at the helm, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Phil Anderson has informed the state Fish and Wildlife Commission he will resign from his position, effective Dec. 31.
Aug. 1 marked the opening of the long-awaited “fall” fishing season on the mainstem Columbia River, which this year is expected to see a record number of fall chinook salmon, a run of coho spawners forecast to be 156 percent of the 2004-2013 average and a summer steelhead return similar to the 10-year average.
Success breeds success, or so it would appear with the largest class of sockeye spawners in recent decades returning to central Idaho’s Redfish Lake.
Studies of six supplementation programs show reduced reproductive successes for hatchery-bred fish compared to wild fish, but the reasons for the lower reproductive success varies among programs and streams.
The Hatchery Scientific Review Team in a June report to Congress summarizes the panel’s recently completed comprehensive review of scientific advancements in hatchery management.
Survival of Upper Columbia River and Snake River steelhead from the juvenile life stage to returning adults is a process that includes the condition of individual fish, not just the conditions of the river and population, according to a recent study.
Upper Columbia River sockeye salmon that have amazed in recent years with record returns to the Okanogan River system now have more room to roam with new access to an area where potentially more fish can rear, and keep those adult returns strong.
NOAA Fisheries, the Idaho Office of Species Conservation, Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Idaho members of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Monday announced the release of the public review draft of the Endangered Species Act recovery plan for Snake River sockeye salmon.
The 900-mile trip up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers is complete for at least one sockeye salmon spawner, with the promise of many more to come this year to seed the Sawtooth Valley’s Redfish Lake and help fuel the resurrection of a stock that had, 20 years ago, nearly gone extinct.
NOAA Fisheries Service earlier this month gave its final approval for the re-introduction of spring chinook salmon in north-central Washington’s Okanogan River basin as an “non-essential experimental” population under Endangered Species Act.
Four conservation groups late last week filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue, claiming that three federal agencies, and officials of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s salmon hatchery on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, are violating Endangered Species Act provisions that prohibit the take of wild listed Puget Sound chinook salmon and steelhead and bull trout.
A next big step down a “presumptive path” toward phasing out non-tribal commercial gill-nets on the lower Columbia River will be the deployment late this summer of 10 permit holders equipped with beach and purse seines, equipment that had been outlawed on the river for more than 60 years.
The Lake Pend Oreille kokanee population has literally risen from its death bed over the past eight years due in large part to an Idaho Department of Fish and Game strategy aimed at reducing predation on the smallish game fish.
A two-year study using genetic stock identification methods shows that chinook salmon from throughout the Columbia River basin at some point in their early lifecycle will occupy shallow water habitats in the tidal freshwater portion of the Columbia River estuary and that these salmon will potentially benefit from current and future conservation and habitat recovery efforts from the Bonneville Dam to the mouth of the Columbia River.
Wild Fish Conservancy on July 9 filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Bonneville Power Administration for alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act associated with the operation of central Washington’s Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery.
Continuing strong sockeye and summer chinook numbers could enable tribal fishers to stretch their summer commercial season almost to the final day on the mainstem Columbia River above Bonneville from beginning to end.
NOAA Fisheries has released for public review a draft environmental impact statement http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov/hatcheries/ps_deis/ps_deis.html for two resource management plans that were submitted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Puget Sound treaty tribes.
The sockeye salmon tally this year at the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam on Tuesday set a record for any season since the construction of the dam was completed in 1938 and the counts began.
Mid-summer sockeye spawners counted passing Bonneville through Tuesday totaled 526,367, and counting.
People spoke pro and con regarding Columbia River salmon hatchery practices and about the viability of restoring fish passage to the upper river, about the need to keep certain areas hydro free, and about controlling costs for a fish and wildlife program that is believed to be one of the most extensive and expensive in the world.
With continuing strong counts at lower Columbia River hydro projects, Oregon and Washington officials decided this week to expand fishing opportunities for anglers and for both tribal and non-Indian commercial fishers on the mainstem Columbia River.
Tacoma Power, Lewis County Public Utility District and Bonneville Power Administration announced last week that they have signed a long-term agreement that will improve natural fish runs in western Washington’s Cowlitz River by providing more efficient passage downstream for juvenile outmigrants.
Anglers will get a second chance to catch up to 1,600 hatchery-reared summer steelhead moving through southwest Washington’s Cowlitz River, thanks to a partnership between Tacoma Power and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The official comment deadline is still on the horizon, but tribes, power user groups and others have been taking advantage of public hearings and other avenues to press for changes to draft language for amendments to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s fish and wildlife program.
Creating fish for harvest while still protecting the sanctity of threatened wild Snake River salmon and steelhead remains “a critical adaptive management challenge” for Lower Snake River Compensation Plan managers, but one they should be equipped to handle, according to a recent review prepared by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
With summer chinook adult spawner counts on track to achieve preseason return estimates, and sockeye salmon numbers looking even better than advertised, Oregon and Washington fisheries officials this week gave their go-ahead for two more weeks of commercial fishing for treaty tribes on the Columbia River mainstem reservoirs above Bonneville Dam.
Surface bypass systems at Columbia River and Snake River dams provide a safe passage for juvenile salmon and steelhead using a relatively small amount of water, according to a recent article that studied juvenile steelhead using a type of surface bypass system at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River.
Northeast Oregon and Washington anglers will get a rare treat when, for the first time in almost 40 years, they will be able to fish the lower Grande Ronde River, which flows down out of the Blue Mountains in Oregon and across the northeast part of the state, then across the southeast corner of Washington and into the Snake River.
Efforts to balance hatchery production for harvest with aims to protect the genetic “integrity” of naturally producing salmon and steelhead populations must be carefully orchestrated scientifically, and in some cases may be difficult if not impossible to achieve, according a recently published paper that analyzes data from a southwest Washington steelhead supplementation project.
Fishery managers announced this week that the spring chinook salmon fishing season scheduled to open this Saturday, June 21 on northeast Oregon’s Imnaha River has been delayed in hope that more hatchery-origin fish make their way back to river.
Fishery managers are estimating there are enough summer chinook returning to meet broodstock needs and have fisheries in the South Fork and upper Salmon rivers but are expecting fewer returning fish than the preseason forecast.
With extreme drought conditions reducing the cold water supply available, California Department of Fish and Wildlife staff are moving the last rainbow trout out of the American River Hatchery to avoid future losses of young fish to rising water temperatures.
The “culling” of double-crested cormorants, by the thousands, is the preferred option considered in a newly released “environmental impact statement” from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in its ongoing effort to produce a management plan for reducing the big, fish-eating birds’ impacts on protected Columbia River salmon and steelhead.
Oregon and Washington fishery managers of Columbia River on Wednesday approved both tribal and non-Indian commercial fisheries for the early summer period, and laid out the ground rules for sport fisheries that are expected to target chinook salmon and what is expected to be a bumper crops of sockeye salmon returning, for the most part, to the Okanogan River basin.
The Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama tribes this week took advantage of a growing upriver spring chinook run-size forecast in implementing one last Columbia River “Zone 6” fishery that was expected to bring the treaty fishers within a few hundred fish of their limit for the spring season.
From 2001 to 2012 the percentage of hatchery fish marked at the hatchery has edged ever higher, according to a report prepared for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at the request of Washington member Tom Karier.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife today announced it has increased the daily bag limit on adipose fin-clipped rainbow trout and steelhead in the Santiam River and the Little North Fork and North Fork rivers.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has adopted the Coastal Multi-Species Conservation and Management plan, http://www.dfw.state.or.us/fish/CRP/coastal_multispecies.asp
which now becomes the state’s working document for managing salmon, steelhead and trout populations along most of the Oregon Coast.
Of the 31 million spring and summer chinook salmon released each year from Columbia River Basin hatcheries, 4.1 percent up to 71 percent of the fish leaving hatcheries will mature quickly and some of those will return early as smaller minijack salmon, depending on the originating hatchery, while the production of minijacks from wild stocks is estimated to be less than 5 percent of males.
The relatively low ocean survival and stray rates of salmonids reared in Columbia River Basin hatcheries might be directly attributable to navigation problems created in the hatcheries’ structures where they are exposed to magnetic fields.
With nearly 10,000 hatchery spring chinook expected to return to the river this year, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced openings today (June 6) on two sections of the Wenatchee River – which are the first such openings in almost 20 years.
An improved upriver spring chinook run-size forecast has allowed Oregon and Washington officials on Tuesday to reopen a sports fishery on the Columbia River mainstem upstream of Bonneville Dam, and set commercial fisheries for this week for both tribal and non-Indian fishers.
A new study by researchers at Oregon State University suggests that wild coho salmon that choose mates with disease-resistant genes different from their own are more likely to produce greater numbers of adult offspring returning to the river some three years later.
A set of 96 genetic markers, or single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), winnowed by Columbia River basin researchers from a list of 4,439 previously identified in Pacific lamprey could help give researchers insights into the lives and life influences faced by the diminished, but highly valued, fish species, according to a research paper made available last week online.
Stalled sport and commercial fishers were given the go-ahead, in decisions made Tuesday by Oregon and Washington officials, to pursue spring chinook salmon on the lower Columbia River mainstem, including “upriver” fish.
Flows through northwest Montana’s Libby Dam were ramping up today (Friday) to create higher flows that might tempt endangered white sturgeon to move up the Kootenai River past Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to spawning habitat that they have long ignored.
Effective immediately, Snake River spring chinook fishing will close for the season below Ice Harbor Dam and Little Goose Dam, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Wednesday.
Just like the rivers he spent a lifetime working to protect, tributes continue to flow in for Billy Frank Jr., the Nisqually tribal leader who died unexpectedly on Monday at the age of 83.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Wild Fish Conservancy announced last week the federal court approval of a jointly submitted “consent decree” that calls for a cessation of so-called “Chambers Creek” hatchery steelhead into Puget Sound tributaries over the next 2½ years, with a lone exception, the Skykomish River.
Fisheries managers are expressing confidence about a strong chinook salmon fishing season in Idaho after recent increases in the number of fish being counted in the Columbia River, including more than 17,000 counted passing Bonneville Dam in one day this week.
The responsibility of Pacific Northwest electricity consumers to pay for a plan to restore threatened and endangered salmon runs has been stretched beyond reasonable limits, according to letter sent this month asking that the governors of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington demand a “God Squad” assessment of the situation.
With catch limits near, planned commercial fisheries targeting spring chinook salmon in so-called “select areas” in the lower Columbia River estuary were rescinded and/or trimmed back in decisions made this week by Oregon and Washington.
The reconfigured left bank fish ladder at central Washington’s Wanapum Dam was watered up Tuesday and, right on call, 10 spring chinook salmon and 46 steelhead climbed the steps and vanished up the Columbia River in search of spawning areas and/or the hatchery of their birth.
Idaho-born spring chinook salmon are starting to show up in the Columbia River, the gateway to their spawning grounds in the Gem State.
Sport anglers get one more shot – Saturday – during the early season in pursuit of spring chinook salmon spawners that are surging up the Columbia River.
Discharge flows from west-central Idaho’s Dworshak Dam is being decreased today from approximately 20,000 cubic feet per second to about 11 kcfs as a means of balancing flood control operations – carving out storage space in advance of mountain snowmelt — and flows to support spring smolt outmigration, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water-management officials.
The proposed 2014 ocean salmon seasons for off the California, Oregon and Washington coasts announced by the Pacific Fishery Management Council this week include good news for both sport anglers and commercial troll salmon fishermen.
State and tribal co-managers meeting in Vancouver, Wash., on Wednesday agreed on a package of salmon fisheries for ocean and freshwater that they say meets conservation goals for wild salmon populations and provides fishing opportunities on healthy stocks.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists and the Commercial Salmon Trollers Advisory Committee are continuing an experimental project to help California’s ocean-bound juvenile salmon, in hopes of increasing survival rates.
Crude oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster causes severe defects in the developing hearts of bluefin and yellowfin tunas, according to a new study by a team of NOAA and academic scientists.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Tuesday that it will not release some 900,000 juvenile early winter hatchery steelhead into rivers around Puget Sound as planned this spring “unless it can resolve issues raised in January by the Wild Fish Conservancy and restated in a lawsuit the group filed this week.”
Juvenile wild steelhead are smaller than hatchery fish when they reach the ocean, but have a higher feeding success, are in better condition and grow faster than hatchery fish once they arrive in the marine environment, according to a recent study.
To provide further protections for threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla District is expanding its current nonlethal avian hazing program at five Corps dams to incorporate limited lethal “take” of certain piscivorous — fish-eating — birds.
Spring chinook anglers on the lower Columbia River will get at least six more days of salmon fishing under a season extension adopted Thursday by Oregon and Washington fishery managers.
Amongst salmon and steelhead populations, a certain amount of “straying” by spawners returning to freshwater is natural.
The release of hatchery produced salmon and steelhead into northwest Oregon’s Sandy River in 2014 can proceed largely as planned according to federal judge, who in a March 14 opinion and order denied an injunction request from fish conservation groups that said such releases should be stopped to prevent harm to naturally produced stocks.
One of Idaho’s most favored targets, “B run” steelhead, are again fair game following a unanimous vote Thursday by the state’s Fish and Game Commission to lift size restrictions for fish hauled from the Clearwater River for the remainder of the 2014 season, effective immediately.
Results of a study of two stocks of wild steelhead in the Hood Canal in Puget Sound show the potential for young salmonids to adapt to warmer water temperature.
Anglers taking to the Pacific Ocean this late spring and summer along the northern Oregon and Washington coasts should enjoy a relative bounty with high numbers of chinook and coho spawners expected, and higher catch quotas being considered for both species than were in place last year.
The release of hatchery-produced salmon and steelhead into northwest Oregon’s Sandy River in 2014 can proceed largely as planned, according to federal judge who in a Friday opinion and order denied an injunction request from fish conservation groups that said such releases would harm naturally produced stocks.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife this week designated three tributaries of the lower Columbia River as “wild steelhead gene banks,” where it will no longer release steelhead raised in fish hatcheries.
It’s not a quick fix to salmon recovery, but reintroducing salmon and steelhead into areas where they were once abundant is one path to recovery for anadromous fish stocks listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Newly adopted state fishing rules aiming to push non-tribal commercial gill netters off the lower Columbia River mainstem that were approved late in 2012 and again in 2013, ignore applicable state and federal law and procedure, according to a legal brief filed last week by lawyers representing commercial fishing interests.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service have agreed on a temporary contingency plan for the release of hatchery smolts in 2014 due to drought.
Washington State University researchers say they have documented dramatic differences in the swimming ability of domesticated trout and their wilder relatives.
Salmon fishing in the ocean and the Columbia River this summer could be great thanks to an abundant run of hatchery coho and a potentially historic return of chinook, according to state fishery managers.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced that the popular spring chinook fisheries on the Deschutes and Hood rivers will open April 15.
In response to the massive fall chinook run predicted to return to the Columbia and Snake rivers this year, Idaho Fish and Game officials are seeking federal permission to harvest unmarked fish.
State salmon-steelhead hatchery management plans for northwest Oregon’s Sandy River basin are moving closer towards the goal of minimizing impacts on protected wild stocks and should be allowed to play out, according to legal briefs filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Portland.
A once thriving fishery, the wild Kootenai River burbot – freshwater cod – is nearing extinction if it doesn’t get help, according to a scientific summary of the burbot in this river that spans two states and British Columbia.
Computer modeling of five migration behavior patterns for 10,000 “virtual” juvenile chinook salmon, when compared with actual fish, determined that salmon actively migrate from the Columbia River northward along the Washington Coast by active horizontal swimming.
Food available for subyearling chinook in the riverine environment of the lower Snake River has a higher energy content than does the food available for the same fish in the reservoirs backed up behind dams.
A U.S. V Oregon Technical Advisory Committee subgroup and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is predicting that an almost unfathomable number of adult fall chinook salmon will return to the mouth of the Columbia River this year – 1.6 million.
A total of 6,391 fall chinook salmon redds (scoured out nests in river bottom gravels) were estimated to have been built in the lower Snake River basin in 2013, representing the highest estimate since intensive surveys began in 1988.
High levels of spill proposed to whisk migrating juvenile salmon safely down the lower Snake and Columbia rivers in springtime would also pose numerous potential risks to fish and aquatic life, according to a review of the proposal by the Independent Scientific Advisory Board.
To help cure what they say is certain harm to wild salmon and steelhead, fish conservation groups last week asked a federal court to order the state of Oregon to end releases of juvenile fish into the Sandy River, at least for now, and enjoin NOAA Fisheries from dispersing federal funds that help hatchery operations in the northwest Oregon river basin.
Recreational fishers say they will fight for a reversal of a decision made Feb. 7 by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission in a 3-2 vote to close off a popular section of the summer Columbia River Buoy 10 salmon fishery at Youngs Bay in Astoria to assure escapement to a terminal commercial fishing area inside the bay.
A recently released report prepared by Salmon for All says there were only minor harvest modifications during the 2013 fishing seasons — the first year of implementation of a new non-Indian salmon harvest strategy for the lower Columbia River — and thus it could “serve as a baseline year against which to measure the economic and social effects of the regime changes as they are instituted.”
A relatively long-running legal dispute regarding gill-net use on the lower Columbia River has taken a step forward, with attorneys for the state of Oregon on Feb. 10 telling the Oregon Court of Appeals that challenges to new non-tribal fishing rules are “without merit.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking comments on a revised draft environmental assessment for the John Day Mitigation Project, which proposes to construct hatchery facilities to increase the production of fall chinook salmon, as required by the Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion for salmon and steelhead.
Coho salmon returns to the Columbia River are expected to rebound in a big way this year, according to forecasts produced by federal, state and tribal fishery officials.
A team of scientists last year presented evidence of a correlation between the migration patterns of ocean salmon and the Earth’s magnetic field, suggesting it may help explain how the fish can navigate across thousands of miles of water to find their river of origin.
Chemically polluted estuaries in Puget Sound significantly reduce the first year survival of hatchery reared chinook salmon and the implications for wild chinook salmon, which spend more rearing time in the estuaries, could be even more severe.
Annual lower Columbia River management of sport harvest of spring chinook salmon in 2014 will mirror recent strategies despite pleas from upriver interests, including treaty tribes and the state of Idaho, that early season catch be reined in to assure the escapement of more early season fish to seed spawning grounds and fuel hatcheries.
The Cathlamet Channel in southwest Washington is about to become the state’s second off-channel or select area commercial gill-net fishery. In a state that has few potential off-channel sites for rearing and fishing on the lower Columbia River, this may be the only remaining site available in Washington.
Wild fish advocates are asking on several fronts in Oregon and Washington for federal courts to help reduce, or eliminate, hatchery releases in areas the plaintiffs say are well suited to be sanctuaries to aid the revival of threatened and endangered salmon, steelhead and trout stocks.
The Wild Fish Conservancy last week served notice that it, unless changes are made within the next 60 days, will sue the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for allowing what the conservation groups says are the illegal outplantings of so-called Chambers Creek hatchery steelhead in a variety of western Washington streams.
An Oregon-based U.S. District judge this week set the stage for continued legal arguments about what needs to be done by the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department and the federal government to ensure that negative impacts on wild salmon and steelhead caused by hatchery production in the Sandy River watershed are kept at legally acceptable limits.
Hatchery steelhead spawners are unlikely to contribute measurably to the natural productivity of a mixed population of hatchery and wild fish unless natural spawner abundance is generally below carrying capacity, according to a new study.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife last week announced the proposed boundaries and time period for a closure of the area at the mouth of the Youngs Bay at Astoria, Ore., to sport catch of salmon during the late summer 2014 salmon season.
If the chinook salmon returns for 2014 hold up to the early forecast, anglers could anticipate fisheries similar to those opened in 2008 and 2009, according to Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials.
U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty in a Jan. 16 ruling said that NOAA Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policies Act when it approved the state of Oregon’s management plan for the operation of the Sandy River Hatchery.
If a draft plan in Oregon for six species of salmon and trout is accepted as is, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will begin to regulate in June 2014 some Oregon coastal streams as wild salmon and steelhead watersheds, while others will see increased hatchery activity, providing more fishing opportunities for anglers.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking out commercial netters to execute a series of test fisheries this spring in a couple of off-the-mainstem, lower Columbia River areas where salmon catch opportunities could potentially be expanded in the future.
Research biologists in Washington state have found that when juvenile hatchery steelhead leave the hatchery rearing pond when they are ready to emigrate – of their own volition, as it were – that they tend to return as adults in larger numbers.
Long-time natural resources manager Michael Carrier has been appointed sSupervisor for the Idaho Fish and Wildlife Office, in the Pacific Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Carrier succeeds Brian T. Kelly, who retired from federal service on Dec. 31.
Salmon-chomping double-crested cormorants that have been nesting in greater numbers each spring and summer at the lower Columbia River estuary’s East Sand Island showed that they could be pushed by human dissuasion from one spot to another, but only a small fraction left the area altogether, according to preliminary results produced during 2013 monitoring.
A stretch run of sorts has been entered in an Oregon legal process in which newly approved Columbia River fishing rules limiting gill-nets are being challenged by commercial fishing interests.
NOAA Fisheries has issued a final rule that designates an experimental population of Central Valley spring-run chinook salmon and establishes take exceptions for activities relating to the reintroduction of this threatened species to the San Joaquin River.
Sockeye and fall and spring chinook salmon appear ready to continue recent strong trends with high returns expected to the Columbia/Snake River system next year, according to preliminary forecasts prepared by federal, state and tribal biologists.
Water temperatures at Lower Granite Dam exceeded allowable limits twice this past summer, temporarily stopping the adult runs of both sockeye and fall chinook salmon through the Snake River dam’s fish ladder.
The Western Environmental Law Center on Dec. 2 filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oregon requesting that the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife secure required permits to ensure that fish produced at west-central Oregon’s McKenzie Hatchery do not impede recovery of wild Willamette River spring chinook salmon that are listed under the federal Endangered Species.
Steelhead fisheries closed Dec. 8 on the upper Columbia River from Rock Island Dam to Wells Dam and on the Wenatchee and Icicle rivers.
Infrastructure improvements and operational changes implemented at west-central Idaho’s Dworshak National Fish Hatchery have resulted in considerable energy savings, and earned the facility’s federal and tribal operators a Department of the Interior Environmental Achievement Award for 2013.
THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN:
Weekly Fish and Wildlife News
www.www.www.staging.columbiabasinbulletin.org
December 12, 2013
Issue No. 688
THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN:
Weekly Fish and Wildlife News
www.www.www.staging.columbiabasinbulletin.org
December 6, 2013
Issue No. 687
Columbia River upriver spring and summer chinook salmon returns are expected to rebound a bit in 2014, coming in above the 10-year averages, according to preseason projections produced this week by the U.S. v Oregon Technical Advisory Team.
High water temperatures and fallback stress may be the biggest enemies, along with harvest, of endangered Snake River sockeye salmon species trying to make their way up roughly 900 miles of the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers to central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley, according to preliminary results presented Tuesday at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers annual Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program research review.
Naturally born steelhead trout of both “winter” and “summer” stocks from the Columbia/Snake river system that try a second run at spawning do much better than their hatchery origin peers, according to preliminary research results presented Tuesday at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program annual review in Walla Walla, Wash.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking public comments on a proposal to formally end releases of hatchery steelhead in three tributaries of the lower Columbia River as a means of supporting the recovery of wild fish there that are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a report outlining fiscal challenges for 70 federal fish hatcheries, announcing there will be no hatchery closures in the coming fiscal year, but programmatic changes could be in store for hatcheries such as the one at Creston, Mont.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is considering changes to the popular fishery at Hosmer Lake near Bend, changes that could include discontinuation of the Atlantic salmon stocking program.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that it does not intend to close any of the nation’s national fish hatcheries in the current fiscal year, but warned that closures may be necessary in fiscal year 2015 given fiscal uncertainty and growing operations costs.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game plans to stock about 200 steelhead in the Boise River today, Nov. 22.
Efforts to restore a population of native Lahontan cutthroat trout in McDermitt Creek in southeast Oregon suffered a setback earlier this month when biologists discovered a reproducing population of non-native brook and rainbow trout in the river.
Basic ocean conditions such as current directions and water temperature play a huge role in determining the behavior of young migrating salmon as they move from rivers and hit ocean waters for the first time, according to new research.
Efforts to restore an “almost” extinct species of Northwest salmon – one that showed no reproductive capability in the early 1990s — are reaching a turning point that is expected to leave extinction fears in the past.
Preliminary data compiled by NOAA Fisheries Service researchers indicates that Snake River yearling spring chinook salmon survival in 2013 from Lower Granite Dam’s tailrace down to Bonneville Dam’s tailrace was 61.9 percent, which is the third highest during the 1999-2013 timeframe, with higher survival recorded only in 2006 and 2012.
A new Independent Scientific Advisory Board review of the Fish Passage Center’s long-running Comparative Survival Study has shown trends in the survival of salmon and steelhead that navigate the Columbia-Snake river hydro system.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is proposing, under the Endangered Species Act, a rule to designate and authorize the release of a “nonessential experimental population” of Upper Columbia River spring chinook salmon in the Okanogan River subbasin, and to establish a limited set of take prohibitions.
During the week of Nov. 4, biologists with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will be surveying 18 miles of McDermitt Creek looking for and removing non-native rainbow and brook trout – part of an eight-year effort to restore native Lahontan cutthroat trout to this remote watershed in southeast Oregon.
A relatively high crop of sockeye salmon spawners returning to central Idaho will soon be sharing the task of recovering a species that 20 years ago was all but extinct.
As of Sunday, a total of 23,332 adult fall chinook salmon, and 2,588 jacks, have been harvested this year in the mid-Columbia River’s Hanford Reach, which stretches from Richland, Wash., up to central Washington’s Priest Rapids Dam.
Yakama Nation Fisheries biologists on Wednesday begin releasing approximately 280 “reconditioned” adult steelhead into the Yakima River basin so that the fish – called kelt – can select mates and spawn again.
In somewhat of a turnabout, James W. Nass, the Oregon Court of Appeals’ appellate commissioner, in an order issued Tuesday denied a request from commercial fishing interests that implementation of new Columbia River fishing rules adopted by the state of Oregon be stayed while legal arguments play out.
Chinook salmon fishing will end on the Snake and Clearwater rivers Thursday, October 31 – except a short reach on the Snake River below Hells Canyon Dam, which closes November 17.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff earlier this month began discussions on how the organization’s fish and wildlife “program” might be amended while taking into account disparate views on topics ranging from hydro system spill for salmon passage to the role of hatcheries in fish recovery schemes to climate change and invasive species to providing upstream passage at dams that have long blocked access to historic habitat.
NOAA Fisheries this fall passed out kudos earlier this month to a voluntary program developed collaboratively by state and local entities to react to water flow issues in north-central Oregon’s Fifteenmile Creek watershed in an attempt to protect summer steelhead stocks that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on Wednesday opened sport fishing for hatchery steelhead on the mainstem upper Columbia River and in central Washington tributaries, the Wenatchee, Icicle, Methow and Okanogan rivers, until further notice.
It’s taken more than two decades to set the stage — via habitat restoration and river flow guarantees — for a planned reintroduction of spring chinook salmon, a species extirpated 75 years ago, in northwest Oregon’s Walla Walla River.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Tuesday moved forward a proposal from the Yakama Nation that would ultimately involve the spending of nearly $9 million to build hatchery facilities aimed at advancing efforts to rebuild coho salmon returns in central Washington’s upper Yakima River basin.
The upper Willamette River coho salmon run, which returned record high numbers in 2009 and 2010, is on the fast track again with large counts, in relative sense, surging upstream past Portland this year.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission during its on Oct. 4 in Newport approved a new fishing endorsement that will be required for anglers targeting salmon, steelhead and sturgeon on the Columbia and Snake rivers, and their tributaries, beginning Jan. 1, 2014.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has released a draft environmental impact report for a conservation fish hatchery to assist with the restoration of salmon runs in the San Joaquin River.
Work done to reintroduce salmon and steelhead to the upper reaches of central Oregon’s Deschutes River basin has shown progress, with the first adult returns in more than 40 y ears showing up at the bottom of the Pelton-Round Butte three-dam complex in 2011 and again in 2012.
The 2013 return of fall chinook salmon to the Columbia River has continued at overwhelming, record numbers but, for whatever reason, steelhead and coho salmon numbers remain well below recent averages.
Updates created his week based on actual dam counts and other information peg the 2013 forecast for the fall chinook return to the mouth of the Columbia River at 1.2 million fish, which would be a record dating back to at least the early 1940s, and likely beyond.
A modern-day record fall chinook spawning run up the Columbia and Snake rivers is, obviously, providing huge bounty for fishermen — sport, commercial, tribal.
Southeast Washington and much of the inland Northwest has sweated through a hotter than normal summer season and has been, until very recently, perspiring about the fate of the Snake River fall chinook salmon run.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is now more than three-quarters finished with a 10-year project aimed at treating alpine lakes above the South Fork Flathead River drainage to purge the presence of non-native trout.
NOAA Fisheries has decided that it will largely stay the course with its plan to assure Columbia/Snake River salmon and steelhead stocks are not jeopardized by the existence and operation of the federal Columbia River Power system.
Soaring fish ladder counts of spawners and near-record sport catches prompted federal, state and tribal fisheries officials Tuesday to raise return forecasts for 2013 adult fall chinook salmon well beyond the best of modern-day levels.
More upriver fall chinook salmon are returning to the Columbia River than any time in the past 75 years, so Washington and Oregon fishery managers are expanding sport fishing options below Bonneville Dam beginning today, Sept. 13.
About 150 state, federal and tribal officials and several local neighbors, gathered Friday, Sept. 6, to mark the completion of the new Springfield Hatchery.
The $13.5 million facility will be capable of producing up to 1 million juvenile Snake River sockeye salmon annually for release in the Sawtooth Basin of central Idaho, the headwaters of the Salmon River.
Fishery officials are not quite ready to declare that this year’s upriver fall chinook salmon return to the Columbia River is early arriving, or if it is even bigger than predicted in a preseason forecast.
But… the stocks’ presence this far into the season is large.
Challenges to the legality of mainstem Columbia River gill-net fishing restrictions recently approved by the states of Oregon and Washington continue through court processes, with Washington’s Thurston County Superior Court on Aug. 23 dismissing a request that the new policy be thrown out.
Federal “action” agencies Friday afternoon (Aug. 23) made public a 300-page document that outlines hundreds of actions, most focused on habitat restoration, that they say will be implemented over the next five years to avoid jeopardizing the survival of 13 salmon and steelhead stocks native to the Columbia-Snake river basin that are now listed for protections under the Endangered Species Act.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife this week released a “determination of non-significance” under the State Environmental Policy Act that says development of a new commercial fishing area along the lower Columbia River’s north shore at Cathlamet will likely not have a significant adverse impact on the environment.
Great fishing for both anglers and gill-netters in the early fall season has prompted Oregon and Washington fisheries managers to take a conservative approach as the Columbia River’s fall chinook return moves toward what is normally its peak period.
Columbia River fishery managers met Monday to review the summer steelhead run status and members agreed to downsize the return estimate for the “A” — the small steelhead component of the run — to 212,000 fish.
Officials will gather just outside Springfield on the morning of Sept. 6 to mark the completion of a new hatchery that is intended to boost recovery of Snake River sockeye.
A total of 90 Snake River sockeye salmon spawners have been trapped as of Wednesday in central Idaho as part of the long-running program to boost production of a species that has since 1991 been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and, during that time period, came close to extinction.
Tribal commercial fishermen are expected to begin their fall season next week targeting the tail-end of a bumper sockeye return the Columbia River and the front end of what is expected to be a strong fall chinook salmon run.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week recommended funding and implementation of two projects aimed at answering, in one case, a demand of the Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion and, in the other, moving forward a project aimed at restoring more normal river conditions for salmon and other species in the Yankee Fork Salmon River in central Idaho.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Dworshak National Fish Hatchery recently received the Department of Interior’s “Hatchery of the Year” Award as well as the Regional ‘Environmental Leadership Award’ for Green Innovation of projects implemented through the BPA Energy Efficiency Program in 2012.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday voted 6-2 to recommend that the Bonneville Power Administration continue its full contribution – about $7.5 million annually – to a program aimed at monitoring the fate of Columbia River salmon via coded wire tag technology.
Sockeye salmon returns this year have been slightly stronger than expected overall for the Columbia River basin, though the endangered Snake River fish have passed upstream with fits and starts because of low flows and warmer than normal water temperatures.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking 12 voting members for the newly created Oregon Hatchery Research Center Board.
Endangered Snake River sockeye are moving again toward their central Idaho home, some in-river and some potentially by truck, after stalling for much of this past week , apparently shying from warm water flushing down through the fish ladder at southeast Washington’s Lower Granite Dam.
Right on time, the first endangered Snake River sockeye of the 2013 completed its 900-mile journey up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers this week in warm conditions, only to be welcomed by wildfire smoldering around the central Idaho hatchery where many of the fish spend their extreme youth.
There are great expectations for the late summer-fall fishing season on the Columbia River mainstem with fall chinook and coho salmon returns predicted to be at or greater than the 10-year averages, but anglers targeting steelhead trout may well face a short supply.
Anglers in central Washington have been given license to take non-native smallmouth bass and eastern brook trout, as well as native adipose-clipped rainbow trout, this summer as a means of reducing predation on freshly hatched steelhead in Salmon Creek, a tributary to the Okanogan River.
The extinction risk faced by Endangered Species Act-listed Columbia River basin “steelhead” stocks may be overestimated given the fact that the contributions of rainbow trout to species viability is not considered, according to a recently published research article.
Study of a thriving population of non-native American shad that spawns up and down the Columbia-Snake river basin could ultimately help inform efforts to revive the species in its native territory along the East Coast, according to a recently published scientific article.
A new season opens next week up and down the Columbia River and in many tributaries with spawning fall chinook salmon becoming eligible for harvest as of Aug. 1 and a bumper crop expected to return to the Columbia-Snake system.
Federal “action” agencies this week gave themselves, and their partners, good marks in implementing the first five years of a 10-year plan aimed at countering impacts of Columbia-Snake River dams on salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Oregon Legislature in the final hours of its 2013 session approved a measure that when becomes law will pave the way for the state to ban most gill net use by non-tribal commercial fishermen on the lower Columbia River for the harvest of salmon and other fish species.
NOAA Fisheries this week published a “recovery plan” produced with the help of federal, state, tribal and local partners with the hope its prescribed actions will lift threatened coho, chinook and chum salmon and steelhead in the Lower Columbia River to sustainable levels that allow the stocks to be removed from the Endangered Species Act list.
Oregon and Washington fishery managers decided this week that, with fish numbers –particularly those of sockeye salmon — holding strong, both sport and commercial fishermen deserved more time on the lower Columbia River mainstem.
With both sockeye and summer chinook counts at the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam “tracking behind expectations,” treaty tribes scaled back commercial fishing requests to avoid impacts on, particularly, a sockeye salmon return that includes fish from the Snake River basin that are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Parentage-based tagging (PBT) is an emerging genetic-based fish tagging method that involves genotyping hatchery broodstock.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on Tuesday released 25,000 tiger muskie into east-central Oregon’s Phillips Reservoir in hope they’d eat down the nonnative yellow perch population that is outcompeting the local trout population.
The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation on Thursday served as hosts for the “First Salmon and Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony” in celebration of the opening of a new state-of-the-art hatchery at central Washington’s Chief Joseph Dam on the mid-Columbia River.
One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to assessing how to spend a limited pot of money for the marking and tagging of Columbia River basin fish for research to determine how various stocks might be better managed.
Sunday began a new season for anglers on much of the Columbia River mainstem with the target being primarily predicted strong returns of “summer” chinook and sockeye salmon, as well as steelhead.
Researchers at the University of Idaho and the U.S. Geological Survey have developed a way to identify New Zealand mudsnail infestations in their earliest stages – using only the small bits of DNA the snails shed in the water.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission heard public testimony pro and con from mid-morning Thursday until past quitting time (5:30 p.m.) before opting to readopt lower Columbia River fish management rules focused on phasing out mainstem commercial gill-net fishing and shifting most of the salmon harvest allocation there to recreational fishers.
One and a half years after the breaching of Condit Dam on southwest Washington’s White Salmon River the future appears bright for salmon and other fish stocks restricted for more than 100 years to a relatively short strip of habitat between the hydro project and the confluence with the Columbia River.
The available options for legal relief could well have done more harm than good for wild, protected salmon and steelhead, according to a May 16 opinion and order issued by Portland U.S. District Court Judge Ancer L. Haggerty.
The 2013 spring chinook salmon return to the Columbia-Snake river basin has lagged behind expectations, but fishing opportunities persist, targeting hatchery produced fish while attempting to hold down impacts on naturally produced segments of the stock bound for spawning areas upstream of Bonneville Dam.
Lookingglass Creek, a tributary to the Grande Ronde River at Palmer Junction in northeast Oregon, will open to fishing for hatchery spring chinook salmon “jacks,” young fish that are showing up in higher than average numbers this year in contrast to relatively low returns for their older brethren.
Recent tests of salmon from Washington’s waters show no signs of a fish virus that can be deadly to farm-raised Atlantic salmon, state, tribal and federal resource managers announced Thursday.
Representatives of state and federal agencies, utilities, local governments, academic institutions and others gathered Wednesday in Vancouver to enhance the passions, and strategic plans, for heading off an invasion of non-native zebra and/or quagga mussels.
Anglers have to wait awhile longer to get back out on the mainstem, but lower Columbia River commercial anglers this week got a second shot at what has been a late-arriving, and under-performing, spring chinook salmon return to the mouth of the big river.
Eighteen months of discussions — including 15 face-to-face meetings and many more conference calls — among subject matter experts and policy makers produced 16 consensus recommendations for how the tagging and marking of salmon and other fish from the Columbia River basin might be made more efficient and cost-effective.
Touched with success, Yakama Nation Fisheries efforts to build returns of once-extinct coho salmon to the mid-Columbia River region are branching out, with hopes of infusing fish into the fingertips of central Washington’s Yakima River basin.
A plan to revisit recently adopted Columbia River salmon harvest rules – which aim to phase out commercial use of gill nets on the mainstem and provide a bigger share of fish to recreational fishers — has been pushed back by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to allow additional time for public input.
The Idaho Fish and Game Commission Tuesday (April 30) approved a spring chinook salmon fishing season to start Saturday (May 4) on parts of the Clearwater, Salmon and Snake rivers.
A newly, and greatly, improved Minto Fish Collection Facility on western Oregon’s North Santiam River went online April 1 and fish were, more or less, standing in line for a lift into the wild fish sanctuary that awaits just upstream.
Sport fishing on the lower Columbia River remains closed as Oregon and Washington fishery managers await a swell of upriver spring chinook salmon that would at least give hope that the preseason forecast return of 141,400 adult fish to the mouth of the river can be achieved.
Starting May 1, anglers fishing for salmon or steelhead on the Columbia River and most of its tributaries downstream from Chief Joseph Dam will be required to use barbless hooks.
Lower Columbia River spring harvest impacts on protected “upriver” spring chinook salmon are fewer than initially calculated, though not quite enough to allow sport or commercial fishers back on the water until at least next week.
Fall chinook salmon emerging from central Idaho’s Clearwater River drainage may begin life under environmental conditions that prompts many to stall their journey toward the Pacific Ocean as juveniles and, as a result, return as adults in higher numbers than fish from other areas of the Snake River basin, according a recently published scientific paper from University of Idaho and NOAA Fisheries Service.
“We’re making the basin better,” Lorri Bodi, the Bonneville Power Administration’s vice president for Environment, Fish and Wildlife, said Tuesday during a look back, and a look forward, at the work being done throughout the Columbia-Snake river system at the direction of the 1980 Northwest Power Act.
The summer’s recreational catch quota for ocean anglers is down slightly for chinook salmon, but up just a tad from last year for coho, according to a recommendation produced this week in Portland by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have a plan to construct and operate a hatchery that would be a key step in attempts to bring naturally spawning spring chinook back to the Walla Walla River Basin — a place they have not been for more than 75 years.
A number of Pacific lamprey passage improvements are expected to come online for this year’s spawning run with the hope of boosting survival through the Columbia-Snake river hydro system so the eel-like fish can rebuild populations in upstream habitat.
In a paper published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, researchers, using acoustic tagging and tracking technology, say they have learned that survival during the first month of life at-sea of juvenile Snake River spring chinook salmon was the same as that of a downstream population which did not first migrate through the Snake River dams.
Oregon and Washington fishery officials Wednesday opted to extend the lower Columbia River season by six fishing days after eyeing a slowly swelling fish return, and the fact that anglers so far only have an estimated 1,572 upriver spring chinook salmon in hand that count toward an early season harvest limit of 4,900 fish.
The planned April 26 Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting has been rescheduled to May 10 to allow additional time for public review of the fiscal impact statement for newly adopted Columbia River fish management and reform rules now being challenged in the state’s Court of Appeals.
A request to stop hatchery salmon and steelhead releases this year into northwest Oregon’s Sandy River basin was denied March 21 by U.S. District Court Judge Ancer L. Haggerty.
After an unexpected off year in 2012, fisheries experts predict that the 2013 Columbia-Snake “upriver” summer steelhead run will rise again nearer to levels enjoyed by anglers during the previous 12 years.
The Court of Appeals for the state of Oregon, amidst a swirl of participation requests and other filings, this week reaffirmed its “order of abeyance,” which allows the state of Oregon to respond to specific criticisms of newly approved fishing rules that would over the next few years largely phase out commercial gill-netting for salmon on the mainstem Columbia River.
NOAA chief Kathryn D. Sullivan in a March 18 letter provides assurances to Washington Congressman Doc Hastings that one path towards rebuilding populations of imperiled Columbia River salmon and steelhead stocks will not block, or sidetrack, another.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking comments on a draft environmental assessment for the John Day Mitigation Project. The Corps proposes to construct hatchery facilities to increase the production of fall chinook salmon, as required by the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion.
The state of Oregon and NOAA Fisheries, joined by three sport fishing organizations, say that the operation of northwest Oregon’s Sandy Hatchery under newly approved federal guidelines is legal and does not jeopardize wild salmon and steelhead protected under the Endangered Act.
While litigants debate their fate, an underdetermined number of hatchery-reared spring chinook salmon smolts have escaped an impoundment on Oregon’s Bull Run River and, presumably, begun their migration toward the Pacific Ocean.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council in mid-February opened what is expected to be a continuing discussion about how, or even if, evaluations of ocean conditions can ultimately help managers in the Columbia-Snake river basin make decisions that help fish and wildlife, and salmon in particular, prosper.
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