Operations at Dworshak Dam designed to cool water during the summer in the lower Snake River will come to an end today, September 22, just in time for the fall equinox.
A fouled water supply caused by the Eagle Creek fire near Bonneville Dam and three Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife hatcheries in the Columbia River Gorge has forced the state agency to release some tule fall chinook six months early, as well as other chinook from four ponds, which were to be released next month. The total early release amounts to about 600,000 juveniles.
More than half of the Atlantic salmon raised in a Cooke Aquaculture net pen in the San Juan Islands escaped before the company could recover them from the damaged pen.
A recent study is the first to explore how infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) spreads among juvenile hatchery-raised fish in the Pacific Northwest, where high rates of infection and mortality can occur.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed last week to two contracts allowing the state agency to continue operating five Corps hatcheries in Oregon which they’ve operated for the most part since the 1950s.
Treaty commercial gillnetting in the Columbia River targeting fall chinook was extended a week in water upstream of Bonneville Dam during a meeting of the two-state Columbia River Compact. The additional four and one-half days of tribal fishing begin 6 am Monday, September 11 and ends 6 pm Friday, September 15. The Compact met Wednesday, September 6.
In the week since thousands of Atlantic salmon escaped a fish farm in Puget Sound’s San Juan Islands, the state of Washington has asked anglers to catch and keep the farmed salmon, formed a containment and recovery team of three state agencies (an Incident Command structure) and placed a moratorium on further permits for farmed salmon in Washington until the reasons for the escape are better known.
The three states that oversee angling regulations on the Snake River closed the mainstem of the river to retention of steelhead in response to a historically low expected return of the fish.
Although the summer has been hot, state fisheries managers have not seen the die-off of salmon and sturgeon this year that was experienced during the low flow and warm water conditions of 2015. Still, 2015 conditions likely had a big impact on current adult salmon and steelhead returns.
Hot weather is continuing in the lower Snake and Clearwater river basins but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is managing to keep dissolved gas issues at bay as well keep the tailwater temperature at Lower Granite Dam under the 68 degree Fahrenheit threshold required by a biological opinion for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia/Snake river hydro system.
Washington State salmon managers are encouraging anglers to fish for thousands of Atlantic salmon that escaped recently from a salmon farm near the San Juan Islands.
With a heat wave arriving this weekend and next week around Lewiston, Idaho, the interagency Technical Management Team this week increased the amount of cold water released from Dworshak Dam in order to maintain cooler water at Lower Granite Dam.
Early commercial fall fishing began this week for both commercial non-treaty gillnetters and treaty gillnetters on the Columbia River mainstem while Idaho, due to historic low returns, suspended retention of steelhead in Idaho rivers as of August 17.
Identified cost savings will help fund some $324,000 of hatchery upgrades, as well as $150,000 for upkeep of screens in fiscal year 2018 (Oct. 1, 2017 – Sept. 30, 2018).
A white paper produced by Columbia Riverkeeper that used computer simulations says that if the four lower Snake River dams had not been in place in 2015, river water would have naturally remained cool enough for the sockeye salmon migrating in the river that year to have successfully completed their journey to their spawning grounds in the Sawtooth Basin in Idaho.
Burbot in the Idaho section of the lower Kootenai River neared extinction in 2004, when the population was thought to be just 50 fish and full extinction was expected within a decade.
To improve survival of stocked rainbow trout in mountain lakes, Oregon biologists are releasing some bigger juvenile fish this year in the Eagle Cap Wilderness.
Upper Willamette River winter steelhead were listed as threatened under the federal endangered species act in March 1999 due to the impact on the native fish by federal dams and habitat loss. Harvest of the fish has not been allowed for more than 20 years.
As they set harvest limits on steelhead fisheries in the Columbia and Snake rivers, managers have long used timing, the number of the fish crossing dams and the length of the fish as their yardsticks. According to a recent study, this technique for fisheries managers may be an oversimplification and even out of date.
After an 800 mile journey through eight dams and 6,500 feet in elevation gain, the first batch of endangered Snake River sockeye salmon are arriving in Idaho’s Stanley Basin, including four naturally produced fish and nine hatchery fish as of August 9, according to Idaho Department of Fish and Game information.
Due to poor ocean survival conditions for chinook (king) salmon, which are persisting in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, extreme management measures are necessary to restrict harvests in coast wide fisheries that are directed at stocks originating in Southeast Alaska, Northern British Columbia, the Fraser River, and the Washington Coast, says the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Where salmon choose to spawn within a river system has an impact on their relative reproductive success.
An ambitious, long-term effort to restore native fisheries in alpine lakes above Montana’s South Fork Flathead River drainage — a major tributary in the Columbia River headwaters — is coming to a successful conclusion this fall.
Daily high air temperatures have been hovering around 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Lewiston, Idaho, causing the lower Snake River to heat up to nearly 70 degrees F at the Lower Granite Dam tailrace this week despite continued releases of cold water from Dworshak Dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River.
Steelhead trout research on a remote northeast Oregon river is showing good reason for the fish’s threatened status under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The Idaho Fish and Game Commission has adopted a fall chinook salmon fishing season to open August 18 on parts of the Snake, Clearwater and Salmon rivers.
A three year hook and line, capture and release study to determine whether fish live or die when hooked by anglers is underway on the lower Cowlitz River in Washington.
Based on historical passage timing, the run of endangered Snake River sockeye salmon through the lower Snake River dams is nearly complete, according to Russ Kiefer of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
Tribes, commercial gillnetters and sports anglers will all begin fishing in August as the two-state Columbia River Compact met this week to set fishing times through the fall season that begins August 1.
Nez Perce leader Casey Mitchell was sworn in as chairman of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission this week.
Idaho Fish and Game wants to know if the current management of Priest Lake fisheries is still working, or if change is needed.
The population of northern pike that is taking up residency in Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir created by Grand Coulee Dam, has spread south this year and has a team of experts saying that suppression of the fish could easily have begun a year or two earlier than it did.
As the runs of summer chinook and sockeye wind down, their forecasted run sizes were updated one last time by the U.S. v Oregon Technical Advisory Committee.
Dworshak Dam’s largest turbine will be out of service for nearly another year, until July 1, 2018. Initially, the Unit-3 overhaul was to be completed July 15, 2017.
Pink adult and juvenile salmon in Alaska’s Auke Creek are adapting to warmer water temperatures by migrating earlier.
After spending more than a century as a working dairy farm, 200 acres of vacant pasture near Astoria, Oregon is returning to its natural environment as a wetland for endangered salmon, steelhead and other fish and wildlife.
Prior to the 1940s, as many as half a million to one million Columbia River chum salmon returned to the Columbia River to spawn as far up the river as Celilo Falls.
Water temperatures in the Lower Granite Dam tailrace have been hovering around 68 degrees Fahrenheit and river and salmon managers took steps this week to hold the temperature at or below the 68 F threshold to protect migrating endangered adult sockeye salmon.
The 2017 run of summer hatchery-produced steelhead in the Willamette River is arriving in numbers lower than expected, but the wild winter run of steelhead, listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, arrived in even smaller numbers and that could impact its recovery.
After saying last week they would likely not continue gillnetting this week, Treaty commercial gillnetters added another 3.5 days of fishing this week – Wednesday, July 12, through Friday, July 14 – in the reservoir upstream of Bonneville Dam.
In what has become an annual summer operation in the lower Snake River to protect endangered Snake River sockeye migrating upstream beginning in July, the interagency Technical Management Team Wednesday, July 5, agreed to increase the amount of cold water released from Dworshak Dam from 8,800 cubic feet per second to 10 kcfs.
An investment of almost $3 million into a northeastern Oregon stream is proving fruitful as young salmon move into newly created habitat.
Recreational anglers downstream of Bonneville Dam to the Astoria-Megler Bridge turned out in higher numbers and caught more than expected fish early in the summer chinook salmon fishery that opened June 15. As a result, anglers zipped through the original harvest guideline quota and retention of summer chinook ended briefly Friday evening, June 30.
Contract negotiations for operating six hatcheries in Oregon will take a little longer, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Harbor seals eat both adult and juvenile salmon, but the adults they target in the autumn are from healthier stocks of fish (of less conservation concern) than the juveniles they target in the spring, according to a recent study of prey preferred by harbor seals in the Straits of Georgia in British Columbia.
Industrial fishing fleets dump nearly 10 million tons of good fish back into the ocean every year, according to new research.
A draft environmental impact statement for proposed harvests of Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead in the future is out for review and comment.
Oregon will soon apply to NOAA Fisheries for a permit to add lethal removal to its pinniped management plan at Willamette Falls south of Portland.
After a month with the number of sea lions hanging out at Bonneville Dam to snack on salmon, steelhead and other available fish exceeding the 10-year average, the number fell to just one, according to a June 7 report.
With the numbers of invasive northern pike expanding in areas of Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir backed up behind Grand Coulee Dam in northern Washington, the Spokane Tribe of Indians is seeking funds for additional gillnetting in the lake.
A complicated weave of protected species – both fish and mammals – in Puget Sound highlights the issues fish and wildlife managers face in recovery choices.
A year-long effort to create a revised research plan that addresses the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s critical fish and wildlife uncertainties was approved by the Council last week.
Work to satisfy the requirements of the Willamette River biological opinion to protect fish is progressing on at least two fronts, according to information given this week at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s meeting in Corvallis, June 14.
With forecasted numbers of wild summer steelhead at annual lows, Oregon and Washington Friday, June 9, released a plan for rolling angling closures in the Columbia River and its tributaries to protect the fish.
With just one day left to fish for white sturgeon in the lower Columbia River estuary, Oregon and Washington closed that section of river to retention after anglers turned out in high numbers and caught more of the fish than expected.
Wolf numbers in Montana remained healthy in 2016 and more than three times the federally-mandated minimums.
A new study might offer a beacon of hope for a cease-fire in California’s persistent water wars.
With Dworshak Dam’s largest generating unit out of service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to spill water this summer at the dam when it will need to provide the reservoir’s cold water to cool the lower Snake River at Lower Granite Dam.
With the spring chinook run transitioning to the summer chinook run in just one week on June 15, the U.S. v Oregon Technical Advisory Committee, which estimates fish runs in the Columbia River, decided at its meeting June 5 to stick with its last run size forecast of 118,000 fish at the mouth of the river. TAC expects 110,000 of the spring chinook will pass Bonneville Dam.
Two environmental organizations that threatened in March to sue federal fisheries managers over releases of hatchery produced summer run steelhead in the upper Willamette River made good on their intent in late May.
For the second time in two weeks, the estimated size of the Columbia River’s spring chinook run has been changed.
Limited angling for white sturgeon will open next week in the lower Columbia River for the first time in three years, but only downstream of Wauna, a town and paper mill in Oregon, as well as in Bonneville Dam’s pool.
A May 19 ruling from a Ninth Circuit Court panel once again upheld a ruling and injunction issued in 2013 by a Washington district judge that requires Washington to remove state-owned culverts that block salmon passage.
A regional advisory committee that forecasts Columbia River salmon runs so fisheries managers can set recreational, commercial and tribal fisheries this week cut their early season run size prediction for spring chinook in half.
A fish and wildlife research plan that has been in the works for more than a year will go to the full Northwest Power and Conservation Council for final approval in June.
Three Columbia River white sturgeon projects were approved by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee at its meeting this week in Boise, Idaho.
Idaho Fish and Game stocks land-locked chinook salmon in lakes and reservoirs, and biologists are asking anglers to help them learn more about these fish in Anderson Ranch, Lucky Peak and Deadwood reservoirs in southwest Idaho and Spirit Lake in north Idaho.
Fishery managers have postponed the annual fishery for hatchery steelhead and jack chinook salmon from Tongue Point upriver to the Interstate 5 Bridge set to begin May 16.
Anglers who fish for steelhead in five tributaries of the lower Columbia River can expect to see some changes in those fisheries as a result of new federal requirements for state hatchery production recently issued by NOAA-Fisheries.
Two-year steelhead smolts released from the Winthrop National Fish Hatchery on the Methow River in central Washington generally had better survival from the tributary into the Columbia River and migrated more rapidly to the Columbia estuary than did one-year smolts.
U.S. commercial and recreational fishing generated $208 billion in sales, contributed $97 billion to the gross domestic product, and supported 1.6 million full- and part-time jobs in 2015 – above the five year average, according to NOAA’s Fisheries Economics of the United States report released this week.
Just 3,337 spring chinook had been counted passing upstream over Bonneville Dam as of April 30, the lowest count of the fish at the dam on record for that date.
Hatchery salmon smolts are not all equal, according to a recent study that examined the same Hood River broodstock but reared a portion – a third – at each of three different spring chinook hatcheries in the Columbia River basin before releasing the smolts back into their native river.
A May 3 federal court injunction will result in an upgraded hatchery and less pollution in Icicle Creek by late summer 2019.
Seven Idaho conservation groups asked NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a letter last week to end transporting endangered Snake River sockeye salmon juveniles beginning this spring.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court decision to allow hatchery salmon and steelhead in the Elwha River as part of a recovery effort following the removal of two dams in 2014.
Oregon adopted state ocean salmon fishing regulations set just two weeks before by the Pacific Fishery Management Council that calls for limited salmon fishing this summer south of Cape Falcon near Cannon Beach, Oregon.
A new population of invasive European green crab has been found at Dungeness Spit, near Sequim, Washington, rekindling concern over the potential for damage to local marine life and shorelines.
A federal court decision denying Portland General Electric’s motion to dismiss a water quality suit against the company for the effects of its dam operations on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon may end up in appeals court as PGE seeks a second opinion at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Recreational angling improved over the weekend in the Columbia River from the river’s mouth to Bonneville Dam, prompting the two-state Columbia River Compact this week to take a cautious approach to extending early season fishing.
Recreational, commercial and tribal fisheries along the Pacific coast north of Cape Falcon will see similar quotas of chinook and coho salmon this year as was available in 2016, but those fisheries south of Cape Falcon will be limited to protect Klamath and Sacramento river chinook stocks.
The very nature of steelhead spawning season is tough, coinciding with high flows and spring storms rolling inland from the Pacific. This year is proving to be more difficult than usual for fish and the biologists who monitor them.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Bonneville Power Administration have narrowed nine proposed white sturgeon projects down to three and are now working to refine those proposals.
On Friday, April 7, 2017 a Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission four-member crew was conducting sea lion abundance counts in the lower Columbia River aboard the research vessel CRITFC 3 when it capsized near Multnomah Falls.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council this week announced the continued closure of the Pacific sardine directed fishery through June 30, 2018. This is the third annual closure in a row for this fishery.
Just 38 early season spring chinook salmon passed Bonneville Dam as of Wednesday, April 5, far below the 10-year average of 766 fish on the same date, and below the count last year on the same date of 706 fish. Fifty percent passage at the dam is expected by May 7.
Idaho Fish and Game on Thursday, March 30 transported about 4,000 adult sockeye salmon from its Eagle Fish Hatchery to its sockeye hatchery at Springfield to ensure the fish remain protected if there’s flooding at the Eagle hatchery.
Joseph Creek, in the far northeastern corner of Oregon, is home to one the most viable steelhead populations in the Snake River basin. A forest restoration project designed for 100,000 acres of the lower Joseph Creek watershed does so with fish benefits in mind.
Most of the trout lost at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Chelan Fish Hatchery due to heavy rain last week will be replaced by other state hatcheries for stocking in northcentral Washington lakes.
At the urging of Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission for the second time in two months changed Oregon harvest reform rules at its March 17 meeting in Corvallis, bringing the rules closer to those adopted by the Washington Commission in January.
Some 10 percent to 21 percent of adult spring chinook migrating in the Willamette River will die before reaching tributaries to spawn, according to a recent study, and the fish most likely to die are those that were injured downstream of Willamette Falls by sea lions, as well as from other migratory-related causes such as descaling and head injuries.
Operators at Dworshak Dam in Idaho dropped flows over last weekend to help reduce the prospect of local flooding downstream in the Clearwater River and further down the Columbia River where water levels are at flood stage at Vancouver, Washington.
Jaime Pinkham, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe with more than three decades of experience in American Indian governance, policy, and natural resource management, is returning to the Columbia Basin to serve as the executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Washington state’s wolf population grew by 28 percent last year and added at least two new packs, according to an annual report released by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Progress on fish and wildlife recovery goals is becoming more accessible and easier to find through Northwest Power and Conservation Council web pages.
Idaho Fish and Game commissioners approved the spring chinook seasons and rules for the Snake, Clearwater, Salmon and Little Salmon rivers during its regular meeting Thursday, March 16 in Boise.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has released the statewide Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2017 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2016 Season report.
Run forecasts for 2017 are down for nearly all salmon and steelhead runs offshore and in the Columbia River and managers are blaming poor ocean conditions over the past few years.
After today, March 17, when the Oregon Fish and Wildlife commission meets, Columbia River salmon harvest rules will likely look similar in both Oregon and Washington, bringing both states into closer compliance with 2013 legislation that was intended to have completely removed commercial gillnetting from the river’s mainstem and allocate more fish to recreational anglers by the first of this year.
Two conservation groups intend to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seeking to force the Corps to begin an Endangered Species Act consultation with NOAA Fisheries over the Corps’ hatchery summer steelhead program in Oregon’s Willamette and Santiam rivers.
Seven responses from six entities to a January request for information for white sturgeon project proposals in the Columbia and Snake rivers were received by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council by February 28, the deadline to reply to the RFI.
The release of 500,000 coho salmon smolts into northeast Oregon’s Lostine River this week marked the return of a species absent 40 years from the Grande Ronde River Basin.
Operations contracts at five of seven Oregon mitigation hatcheries that are currently operated by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife but owned and funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may actually stay with ODFW.
American shad, a species that is not indigenous to the Columbia River basin, is providing food in August for subyearling chinook salmon in the John Day Dam reservoir.
Federal dam operating agencies released last week an annual evaluation of progress toward meeting the conservation requirements of the federal power system’s 2008 biological opinion and the 2014 supplemental BiOp for Columbia/Snake river salmon and steelhead.
With more rain and snow predicted in March, Columbia and Snake river basin water supply forecasts continue to rise, with all basins at or above average.
Fisheries managers have announced that the popular spring chinook fishery on the Deschutes River will not open in 2017.
Salmon tend to spawn in the same reaches of rivers year after year and knowing where could lead habitat restoration efforts in the future.
Returns of hatchery chinook and coho salmon to Washington’s rivers and ocean waters are expected to vary this year, but low returns of wild salmon projected to several rivers will again make setting fisheries a challenge.
With a significant jump in the water supply forecast from last week’s estimate at Dworshak Dam, operating and fisheries managers agreed to a temporary increase in flows from the dam this week to 12,500 cubic feet per second, which will cause total dissolved gas below the dam to rise above the current 115 percent to as much as 120 percent.
Fishery managers from Washington and Oregon Thursday, Feb. 23, approved an initial sport fishery for spring chinook salmon on the lower Columbia River that reflects a lower projection of returning fish but a larger share of the catch than in previous years for the recreational catch.
More harvest-sized and adult broodstock-sized white sturgeon made the lower Columbia River home in 2016 than in 2015.
Ocean and estuary research is getting a boost from a periodic Northwest Power and Conservation Council forum – the Ocean and Plume Science and Management Forum.
With the population decline of Pacific lamprey along the Northwest coast and in the inland Columbia River basin, a conservation initiative was established for the fish to promote the implementation of conservation measures in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
Faced with a greater certainty that the Clearwater River basin water supply forecast will be higher than average, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers increased outflows late this week at Dworshak Dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River.
Scientists at the University of Washington and the state Department of Natural Resources intend to test a management approach that mimics natural disturbance patterns and processes across a large portion of the Olympic Peninsula, an area known for having the most rainfall in the lower 48 states, high tree-growth rates and old-growth forests, part of which remain today.
Gillnetting for sturgeon in two lower Columbia River Dam reservoirs was extended to March 1 after a slow start to the Tribal season. The fishery was set to close this week on Wednesday, February 22.
In an apparent response to a letter sent Feb. 9 to Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission chair Michael Finley from Gov. Kate Brown, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department staff reopened the Commission’s January 20 harvest reform decision.
A NOAA Fisheries five year status review completed last year found that upper Columbia River spring chinook are at high risk of extinction, even after a recovery plan was put into place in 2007.
Numbers for 2016 fall chinook redd counts looked good this year with a total of 6,426 redds estimated in the Snake River Basin, representing the third highest estimate since the Nez Perce Tribe began intensive surveys began in 1988.
Pacific Lamprey populations spawning in the Willamette River may display several genetic differences, characterized by size and spawn timing, according to a recent report.
New research shows in greater detail that forage fish stocks such as sardines have undergone boom-bust cycles for centuries, with at least three species off the U.S. West Coast repeatedly experiencing steep population increases followed by declines long before commercial fishing began.
The immediate cost of operation and maintenance projects at Northwest hatcheries dropped to $115,000 from the previously identified $200,000 cost for repairs. The money was set aside to protect the region’s hatchery investments.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it will end its cooperative agreements with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to operate seven Corps-owned hatcheries in Oregon and instead solicit bids and award contracts for their operation. In the end, that could privatize operations at the hatcheries by July 1.
Levels of stored energy in steelhead differ according to sex, the amount of time spent in freshwater before spawning and whether the fish is of wild or hatchery origin, according to a recent study of steelhead that spawn in the Kalama River in Washington state.
Forecasting a slightly lower water supply in the North Fork Clearwater River basin this week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opted to continue a combined generation and spill operation at Dworshak Dam, maintaining total dissolved gas levels at just under 110 percent, but still within clean water limits.
Tribal gillnetters fishing for the few sturgeon available to them this winter in The Dalles and John Day pools, pulled in low numbers of the fish in the first week of winter gillnetting season.
Spring chinook salmon are continuing to spawn in the newly-created habitat upstream of where Condit Dam once blocked their access on the White Salmon River, while mostly spring and fall chinook and steelhead are spawning in the 3.3 miles of river below the old dam site.
In its first hearing of the year, the two-state Columbia River Compact this week set spring fishing for commercial select areas and tribal gillnetters, but with fewer fish forecasted in 2017, the Compact took a conservative approach to setting fishing periods.
The difficulty of operating a dam when just half the generation is available, drain enough water from the reservoir to meet April flood control targets and still meet water quality standards for total dissolved gas is proving to be a “balance the risk” operation at Dworshak Dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River.
State and federal wildlife-diagnostic centers have confirmed an outbreak of avian cholera near the Tri-Cities, where more than 1,200 dead ducks have been reported in the past week.
I have a few comments regarding the recent article on the Bi-State harvest plan for the lower Columbia River.
An all-inclusive region-wide effort to connect various salmon recovery efforts was set in motion by NOAA Fisheries this week as it held its first Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force meeting.
More sockeye salmon returned to the upper Deschutes River’s Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric Project in 2016 than they have since efforts began in 2010 to reintroduce the fish to the blocked areas upstream of the dam — and most of those sockeye were native fish.
Less than one week after the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted changes to its Columbia River Fisheries Reform policy that reduced the time commercial gillnetting would be allowed on the lower river, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted changes to its own policy – and the states’ policies are not the same.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Committee approved the release of a white sturgeon request for information at its meeting in Portland January 10. The $300,000 projected cost for the RFI came from cost-savings from projects associated with the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has set three public meetings to help develop the spring chinook salmon rules for the Clearwater Region.
NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region has completed a biological opinion of hatcheries funded under the Mitchell Act, potentially freeing the federal agency to make payments to operators of those hatcheries.
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission voted last week to implement the next phase of the state’s reform policy on Columbia River salmon management, including updates to provisions for fall chinook salmon.
In most of Washington State salmon recovery goals are not being met.
Using $300,000 identified from cost-savings in fiscal year 2016, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and the Bonneville Power Administration released a request for information to fund project-ready study ideas for white sturgeon upstream of Bonneville Dam.
A federal judge has finally weighed in to end bureaucratic back-and-forthing between agencies over permitting a federal hatchery on a Wenatchee River tributary that has been going on since 1980.
Fishing communities can survive — and even thrive — as fish abundance and market prices shift if they can catch a variety of species and nimbly move from one fishery to the next.
Researchers this month reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a strong correlation between toxic levels of domoic acid in shellfish and the warm-water ocean conditions orchestrated by two powerful forces – El Niño events and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
In the near future, recreational anglers could report their salmon or steelhead catch on their smart phone, giving fisheries managers a 2.6 to 3 times greater confidence in the information they receive from anglers than if they solely used traditional creel surveys.
The level of salmon density in the salt water where Big Qualicum River chum salmon grow to maturity impacts a chum salmon’s early growth, its size and its age at maturity, says a recent study on “density-dependent competition.”
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is reminding Lake Roosevelt anglers that new fishing rules are in effect to protect wild native redband rainbow trout on Lake Roosevelt and the Spokane and Sanpoil Arms of the 150-mile reservoir.
Steelhead enthusiasts can now show support for their favorite species by purchasing a vehicle license plate with an image of Washington’s iconic state fish.
A facility at the Nez Perce Hatchery on the Clearwater River in Idaho that will recondition spawned Snake River steelhead, known as kelts, was given the go-ahead by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its Portland meeting December 14.
Steelhead kelts – repeat spawning fish – brought into a reconditioning facility in the Yakima River basin will spawn again in either the first year after spawning or one year later.
Flow objectives were generally met this spring but not this summer as juvenile salmon, steelhead and lamprey migrated through the mid- Columbia and Snake Rivers, but the timing of the migration was early due to an early runoff and most fish had passed collection facilities before barging began.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced that it intends to obtain information necessary to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for salmon and steelhead hatchery programs currently operating in the Upper Willamette River Basin of Oregon.
As a result of its recent work with “relative reproductive success” projects, the Bonneville Power Administration and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee have identified a project that could free up more than $500,000 in savings that Bonneville could use in other fish and wildlife projects.
NOAA Fisheries this week described a proposed slate of changes at hatcheries that it says will reduce the impact of Mitchell Act hatchery fish on wild fish in the Columbia River basin.
The forecasted return of adult spring and summer chinook salmon to the Columbia River basin in 2017 will be lower than initial estimates made last year in December, but the estimate of sockeye salmon is nearly twice the size of last year’s estimate, according to an early forecast of the runs released this week by the U.S. v Oregon Technical Advisory Committee.
Barged juvenile fall chinook salmon from the Snake River may be missing important imprinting opportunities, especially at the confluence of major rivers, and so tend to stray more as adult fish as they home back to spawning areas or hatcheries.
Relicensing the Hells Canyon Complex started long before 2005 when Idaho Power’s license expired to operate its system of hydroelectric dams on the Snake River between Idaho and Oregon, but finding common ground regarding fish passage remains at an impasse.
Will the Oregon Coast coho become the first of 28 threatened and endangered species of salmon and steelhead on the West Coast to recover to the point they can be delisted from the federal Endangered Species Act?
A preview of a draft report that looked at survival of Snake River and upper Columbia River sockeye salmon, chinook salmon and steelhead juvenile migrants, found that the toughest stretch of the journey for the fish is from McNary Dam to Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River.
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will review three options on how to continue or modify the two-state harvest reform policy for Columbia River salmon and steelhead at its meeting this weekend, December 9 and 10, in Olympia.
In its meeting today, December 2, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to approve rulemaking that would extend the transition period through January to implement the Columbia River Fisheries Reform aimed at removing gillnetters from the Lower Columbia River mainstem.
The Nez Perce Tribe proposes to capture and recondition spawned steelhead in the Snake River to increase the steelhead return rate from 0.4 percent to at least 6 percent to meet a federal biological opinion reasonable and prudent alternative.
A hatchery reared steelhead fry with dominant and/or aggressive traits will grow bigger than non-dominant fry, but that doesn’t mean that growth will keep pace as the juvenile steelhead is released from the hatchery.
Lower Columbia River gillnetters told the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission last week that fishery harvest reforms initiated in 2013 are not working economically, while salmon and steelhead anglers accused the commission of vacating its promise to get gillnetters off the river.
A white paper that evaluates the best and most up-to-date ways to pass salmon and steelhead beyond dams that have historically blocked passage will be ready for the public, as promised, by the end of 2016.
A new chapter in the two-decade-old Snake River salmon and dams saga unfolded in Lewiston Wednesday ( Nov. 16) as hundreds of people showed up for a meeting designed to guide federal agencies in the forthcoming study of the controversial issue.
More than half a million dollars was earmarked by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee for operation and maintenance projects at hatcheries, and for yet to be identified work with lamprey, sturgeon and climate change impacts. The Committee made the decision at its meeting Tuesday, November 15 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
During the past week, approximately 200 dead adult steelhead have been discovered in the tailrace just below the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Dworshak Dam on the North Fork of the Clearwater River.
As it reviews preliminary results of the 2016 commercial gillnetting and recreational angling season on the Columbia River at its meeting next week, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will also begin considering statutory changes to Columbia River fishery harvest reform that could extend gillnetting on the mainstem river in 2017, beyond the reform deadline.
Recreational angling for coho and steelhead will resume in the Columbia River Saturday, November 5, but fishing for fall chinook will remain closed.
Calling it a “mature product,” the Independent Scientific Advisory Board completed its review of the latest draft of the Fish Passage Center’s Comparative Survival Study October 21.
NOAA Fisheries is inviting public feedback on a new proposed recovery plan for Snake River spring/summer chinook salmon and steelhead, two threatened species that once represented close to half of all salmon and steelhead returning to the Columbia River system.
With a moderate La Nina predicted, meteorologists at an annual conference in Portland are calling for generally wetter conditions with more snow in the mountains – and even some in the Willamette Valley – during the 2016-17 winter.
Tuesday, November 1, federal agencies will begin to maintain flows to protect spawning chum salmon and their redds downstream of Bonneville Dam.
The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed a self-charging tracking tag for fish behavioral studies.
The National Marine Fisheries Service recently announced a proposal to align descriptions of 28 hatchery programs with descriptions for protected salmon and steelhead populations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California.
Across the nation, U.S. fishermen in 2015 landed 9.7 billion pounds of fish and shellfish valued at $5.2 billion, a volume and value similar to recent years.
A round-up just downstream from Idaho’s Sawtooth Hatchery in late September gathered the last of the endangered sockeye salmon to arrive in the Salmon River near Stanley.
With another drop in the fall chinook forecast and a continuing poor run of steelhead and coho salmon this fall, the two-state Columbia River Compact and the state of Washington shut down angling for salmon and steelhead from the mouth of the Columbia River to the Hwy 395 Bridge near Pasco as of Saturday, Oct. 22.
A moratorium on angling and lake trout eradication efforts to address the threats of overfishing and a voracious non-native species appear to have stemmed the decline of bull trout in Lake Pend Oreille, according to a recent study.
Charged with developing a single metric researchers would use to measure the effects of predator control activities in the Columbia River Basin, an advisory board to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council recommended two approaches, saying that a single metric is not adequate for evaluating all goals.
Attorneys for NOAA Fisheries filed a status report last week in federal court outlining the fisheries agency’s progress towards completing biological opinions and incidental take statements for 10 Northwest hatcheries funded under the Mitchell Act.
For the fifth time since a relatively high pre-season forecast, river managers downgraded their estimate of the size of the fall chinook run this week.
A survival study by NOAA Fisheries and funded by the Bonneville Power Administration shows near average downstream passage of juvenile yearling chinook salmon and steelhead through Snake River hydroelectric projects in 2016. However, survival of sockeye salmon was poor – just 11.9 survival — especially downstream of the Snake River dams.
Juvenile chinook salmon density in shallow habitats downstream of Bonneville Dam is largely due to time of year, but density does differ across habitat types.
River managers downgraded on September 26 their estimate of the fall chinook salmon run size for the third consecutive week, and added a fourth downgrade this week.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is moving into the next generation of monitoring fish populations — one of the toughest challenges in fish management — by using new environmental DNA (eDNA) science to quickly and accurately identify fish species in streams and lakes.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking four new Board members to represent the Columbia River gillnetters, Oregon Salmon Commission, the agricultural industry and Oregon Indian Tribes on the Oregon Hatchery Research Center Board. The successful candidates will serve four-year terms.
For the past several years, technicians have been trucking spring chinook salmon above the Willamette Valley’s Foster Dam in Sweet Home, Oregon to see if they would spawn, and if their offspring could survive the passage over the dam and subsequent ocean migration to eventually return as adults some 3-5 years later.
The expected number of fall chinook to the Columbia River mouth was downgraded again this week to 802,200 fish, 84 percent of the preseason forecast, but the Group-B steelhead forecast was upgraded to 38,200 fish, about 50 percent more than preseason numbers.
A draft assessment of the impact of salmon, steelhead and trout hatcheries along the Oregon Coast was released at the end of August for 60 days of public comment, a period that closes October 26, 2016.
Letters from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Committee’s cost-savings workgroup were sent last week to leaders of 10 research projects inviting them to an all-day review at the Council offices October 13.
As a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractor began disassembling generator unit-3 for overhaul at Dworshak Dam in Idaho Monday, about 291 gallons of oil spilled from the units’ guide ball bearings at 10:30 am.
Tribes involved with long-running litigation over fish-blocking road and highway culverts are urging the state of Washington to drop a recent appeal of the case. The tribes say continuing the case will be unnecessarily costly, but the state has long maintained the cost of removing and replacing culverts will be cost prohibitive.
In 2015, low flow conditions, coupled with high air temperatures and warm water in the Snake and Columbia rivers and their tributaries from mid-June to mid-July, resulted in the highest mainstem water temperatures recorded in the Columbia River Basin, making survival of the basin’s sockeye salmon a constant source of concern.
The forecasted run of fall chinook salmon into the Columbia River was downgraded 10 percent, but with lower than anticipated catch rates among recreational anglers, the two-state Columbia River Compact Wednesday extended angling for fall chinook from Warrior Rock at St. Helens, Oregon to Buoy 10 at the river’s mouth.
In a court filing responding to a lawsuit by the Deschutes River Alliance over alleged Clean Water Act violations, Portland General Electric suggested to the U.S. District Court that it should dismiss the case.
Idaho Fish and Game researchers are studying whether using traditional hatchery technology in a nontraditional way can eliminate unwanted fish populations in the wild.
Canada began releasing water from Lake Okanagan last week to help raise water levels in Lake Osoyoos to aid juvenile salmon that rear in the lake, according to the Washington Department of Ecology.
NOAA Fisheries and the Wild Fish Conservancy have stipulated that the agency will not disburse Mitchell Act funds to 10 Northwest hatcheries until the federal agency has completed its hatchery biological opinion and incidental take statements for the disbursements.
Some 31 percent of white sturgeon in the Hells Canyon reach of the Snake River were confirmed through hand held metal detectors and X-Ray to have hooks embedded in them and most of those hooks were acquired from the bottom of the river, not directly from anglers, according to a recent study.
A lower than expected harvest of chinook salmon at the Columbia River mouth prompted the two-state Columbia River Compact at its hearing August 31 to extend the popular Buoy 10 recreational fishing season by nine days through September 14.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission last Friday adopted regulations and a management plan to protect forage fish that are not covered within state waters off the Oregon Coast.
The Deschutes River Alliance made good on its 60-day notice to sue Portland General Electric over what the DRA says is more than 1,000 Clean Water Act violations at the utility’s Pelton-Round Butte hydroelectric complex on the Deschutes River in Central Oregon.
Water in Lower Granite Dam’s tailwater continues to run several degrees cooler than the 68 degrees Fahrenheit upper temperature limit set by NOAA Fisheries’ 2014 biological opinion for Columbia/Snake salmon and steelhead, and the result has been improved passage for sockeye salmon.
Fall chinook salmon passage at Bonneville Dam is within expectations, but catch of the fish is lagging in the popular Buoy 10 fishery for recreational anglers.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has designated the Nisqually and Elwha rivers as wild steelhead gene banks to help conserve wild steelhead populations.
Trapping and hauling listed sockeye will not be necessary this year due to cooler air and water temperatures in the lower Snake River, according to a briefing of Snake River conditions and operations at this week’s Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting.
Recreational angling for fall chinook and coho salmon opened in most areas of the Columbia River last week, including the popular Buoy 10 fishery, as well as in Columbia tributaries, and in some coastal streams.
Calling it a “very important and valuable study,” the Independent Scientific Review Panel has completed its review of a 23-year-long study (1991 to 2014) of salmon supplementation in two Idaho river basins – the Salmon and Clearwater river basins.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are winning their battle to reduce the number of non-native lake trout in Flathead Lake and surrounding streams that feed on, among other native species, bull trout.
The Idaho Fish and Game Commission on Monday, Aug. 8 approved a plan to limit the take of grizzly bears in Idaho as part of removing the Greater Yellowstone population from the federal list of threatened and endangered species.
The Wild Fish Conservancy is seeking an injunction and restraining order to block the continued use of Mitchell Act funding for salmonid hatchery operations in the lower Columbia River system.
What is expected to be a higher than average run of fall chinook salmon has begun to enter the Columbia River. However, the runs of coho and steelhead, while still respectable, are expected to arrive in numbers lower than the ten-year average.
Commercial and recreational fisheries in the lower Columbia River have had little to no impact on the length and size of upriver chinook salmon, according to a recent study.
As many as 7 percent of the steelhead in the ocean are preparing for their second, third or even fourth trip to spawning grounds in coastal and inland rivers, according to a recent study.
With cool water temperatures in the lower Snake River, sockeye salmon are passing dams on the river without encountering the thermal block that stopped them dead in their tracks in 2015.
NOAA Fisheries research indicates that after accounting for harvest, in some years as many as 45 percent of the salmon tagged in the estuary disappear before reaching Bonneville Dam, according to a presentation last week to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
A draft white paper released by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council that evaluates the best and most up-to-date ways to pass salmon and steelhead beyond dams that have historically blocked passage is out for an informal review.
NOAA Fisheries is seeking nominations for a new Columbia Basin Partnership Task Force to provide information and advice on the establishment of long-term goals for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin.
With the current 10-year federal court agreement – U.S. v. Oregon– that guides Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead harvest set to expire next year, federal agencies have announced their intention to prepare a joint environment impact statement to help guide a new harvest agreement post-2017.
Results of survival tests for young salmon and steelhead that migrate to the ocean through six Federal Columbia River Power System dams all generally exceeded the survival requirements of NOAA Fisheries’ 2008 FCRPS biological opinion for Columbia River salmon and steelhead, according to a recent study.
NOAA Fisheries last week re-authorized the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to continue lethal removal of California sea lions that prey on salmon and steelhead at Bonneville Dam.
Salmon fishing in Oregon’s southern Grant County had been a thing of the past for nearly 100 years – until a joint effort by the Burns Paiute Tribe and the state of Oregon brought salmon to Malheur Ford outside of Seneca.
Utah State University scientists report a watershed-scale experiment in “highly degraded” streams within Oregon’s John Day Basin demonstrates building beaver dam analogs allows beavers to increase their dam building activities, which benefits a threatened population of steelhead trout.
As a larger than predicted run of sockeye salmon head up the Columbia and Snake rivers – some 400,000 fish — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took steps this week to cool water in the lower Snake River.
The two-state Columbia River Compact approved two fishing periods for Tribal commercial gillnetting, as well as two periods for select area commercial gillnetting in the lower Columbia River.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a ruling that affirms a lower court decision that directed the state of Washington to repair hundreds of road culverts to improve salmonid fish passage.
The Spokane Tribe of Indians and the Bonneville Power Administration this week signed a new agreement that promises BPA ratepayer support of the Spokane Tribal Hatchery for another 20 years. The agreement also includes funding for hatchery modernization and improvements.
Anglers can reel in salmon off the Washington coast beginning today, July 1, when the ocean sport fishery gets underway daily in all four marine areas.
Columbia Basin fish and water managers are planning for operations at Dworshak Dam on the Lower Snake River to regulate water temperatures for the benefit of migrating sockeye salmon this summer.
As Oregon and Washington canceled the second Bonneville Dam reservoir white sturgeon season and opened up more fishing for commercial gillnetters in the lower Columbia River select area fisheries, the run of sockeye salmon already has exceeded pre-season estimates.
To expand opportunity for anglers to fish for one of Idaho’s most prized game fish, Idaho Fish and Game will release chinook salmon into the Boise River today.
Although there have been too few years to determine the overall success of a reintroduction program into areas upstream of the Pelton Round Butte complex of dams on the Deschutes River, Portland General Electric and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists have tallied 886 spring chinook salmon, sockeye salmon and summer steelhead on their way back to the Crooked, Deschutes and Metolius rivers the last five years.
The spring chinook salmon fishing on the Columbia River ended Wednesday evening and was followed immediately by a summer chinook and summer steelhead season for Treaty Indian gillnetters, Treaty platform and hook and line fishers, commercial gillnetters and recreational anglers: in short, everyone is fishing.
A program of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Nez Perce Tribe is putting leftover steelhead carcasses in a northeastern Oregon stream for marine nutrient enhancement.
The Snake River run of fall chinook salmon will retain its threatened status under the federal Endangered Species Act, according to a 12-month determination released last week by NOAA Fisheries.
NOAA Fisheries completed its five-year status review for 28 Pacific salmon and steelhead stocks last week. None of the fish stocks, all listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, warranted a change in status.
With quotas still unmet, the two-state Columbia River Compact, meeting last week and this week, sent recreational anglers and commercial gillnetters downstream of Bonneville Dam — along with tribal gillnetters upstream of the dam — fishing for the last remnants of the spring chinook salmon run.
The planned timing of a change to the amount of water spilled at Lower Monumental Dam was spot on, according to fisheries and dam managers at this week’s interagency Technical Management Team meeting.
Fifty-six adult Pacific lamprey were released into the tributaries of northeastern Oregon’s Joseph Creek last week – where the fish were once so abundant homesteaders were afraid to swim in the “water-snake” infested waters.
The hydrothermal vents and methane seeps on the ocean floor that were once thought to be geologic and biological oddities are now emerging as a major force in ocean ecosystems, marine life and global climate.
The amount of water to be spilled at Lower Monumental Dam on the lower Snake River was increased Friday to aid the passage of juvenile sockeye salmon and steelhead that are now migrating downstream to the ocean.
An elevated flow operation at Libby Dam, intended to benefit wild Kootenai River white sturgeon, got underway late last week, and the outlook for reservoir refill above the dam is expected to fall well short of full pool this year.
The estimated size of the upriver spring chinook salmon run was reduced by nearly five percent this week by the U.S. v Oregon technical advisory committee. Still, the two-state Columbia River Compact, which met Wednesday, set additional recreational and non-Indian commercial fishing dates.
Managing salmon fisheries in northeast Oregon’s remote rivers makes forecasting tricky – a task assigned to Oregon Fish and Wildlife fish biologist Jeff Yanke, based in Enterprise.
A plan to develop a white sturgeon supplementation hatchery near Toppenish, Wash. proceeded to the second step of the process last week. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council at its meeting in Boise, Idaho approved the step after a review by the Independent Scientific Review found that the latest version of the hatchery master plan meets scientific review criteria.
Ocean acidification expected to accompany climate change may slow development and reduce survival of the larval stages of Dungeness crab, a key component of the Northwest marine ecosystem and the largest fishery by revenue on the West Coast, a new study has found.
After finding another $85,000 in cost-savings from a Washington-based project, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Committee’s cost savings workgroup will begin to review nine projects that have a common theme – relative reproductive success studies that are already in progress.
A long-term study of salmon “supplementation” on two Idaho streams – the Clearwater and Salmon rivers – found that the method successfully increased the number of naturally-produced juvenile chinook salmon at Lower Granite Dam, but that there was only small increase in returning adults.
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