The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider a rule change that will allow salmon, steelhead and trout anglers to use barbed hooks on the lower Willamette River, Youngs Bay, and lower Gnat Creek when it meets in Salem today, Jan. 9.
The Lummi Nation, in a strongly Jan. 5 worded letter, asks the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take immediate action to deny a permit for what would be North America’s largest coal export terminal at Cherry Point, citing significant impacts to treaty rights and irreparable damage to important crab and salmon fisheries.
Bountiful returns of coho and fall chinook salmon to the Columbia River system in 2014 provided the highest harvests in many years for non-tribal commercial gill-net fishermen with more than 190,000 landings reported from so-called “select areas” alone.
The states of Oregon and Washington would like in the new year to try again limited fisheries on the lower Columbia River mainstem and tributaries to gain knowledge about the population status of eulachon, a species of small fish — often called smelt — that were listed in 2010 as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife this week released more than 50,000 trout, including nearly 10,000 “pounders,” into Willamette Valley fishing holes in an emergency action triggered by a gate malfunction at Leaburg Dam.
In its recently adopted 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council committed to working with the region’s fish managers — state, federal, and tribal — to review objectives that can be “quantified” in rebuilding salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia drainage.
It’s a theory that has worked with other parasites: expose fish to a less virulent strain of parasite that will not kill the host, but instead will build resistance to a strain that could kill.
Tagging of sport fish has given Idaho fisheries managers an easier and more accurate way to track exploitation rates in the state and, it seems, other states are taking notice.
The white sturgeon sport fishery in the Bonneville Dam reservoir will open Jan. 1 and extend through March 1 as long as harvest totals remain within projections, according to fishing rules adopted Thursday by the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife.
Once netted, normal and rapid handling of a rainbow trout as it is returned to the water does not cause the fish to die, according to a recent report out of Germany.
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark announced this week the province has approved the “Site C Clean Energy Project,” – a large dam on the Peace River in northeastern in British Columbia — concluding it will provide British Columbia with the most affordable, reliable clean power for over 100 years.
The Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society will be holding a symposium – Hatchery Vs. Wild Salmonid: Research Management and Reform in the Pacific Northwest – on January 22-23 in Portland.
Lower Columbia River anglers put in record effort in 2014, tantalized particularly by forecasts of a record return of fall chinook to the system.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission on Dec. 5 adopted rules to implement the “Columbia River Fisheries Transition Program” and with it a $500,000 grant fund that will pass through Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to qualifying county programs, which would then distribute funds to holders of Oregon Columbia River gill-net vessel.
The Yakama Nation this week filed a complaint in Oregon’s U.S. District Court that seeks from the federal government costs incurred by the tribe for participation in the long-running investigation and cleanup of the so-called Bradford Island site at the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam.
Not all juvenile chinook salmon in Idaho rivers stay in their natal waters to rear and that may contribute to their success when returning to spawn as adults.
Although the Pacific lamprey is declining in most West Coast rivers, their abundance in the Willamette River basin is relatively healthy and, according to a recent survey of spawning Pacific lamprey, the species tends to spawn in areas favored by steelhead and salmon.
Fickle white sturgeon – listed as at great risk of extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act – are nibbling on strategies aimed at restoring spawning activities in preferred zones in northernmost Idaho’s Kootenai River.
Snake River sockeye salmon, once virtually extinct with one wild fish, or none, returning annually to central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley, have rallied to the point that they are cover boys and girls for this month’s American Fisheries Society’s Fisheries magazine.
“More fish – and more wild fish – are returning to the river” according to an annual “progress” report released last week by federal action agencies charged with assuring that beleaguered Columbia and Snake salmon and steelhead populations survive, and ultimately thrive.
A high proportion of non-hatchery juvenile spring chinook salmon in the Upper Willamette River spend their early lives in reservoirs created by dams.
The University of Washington Climate Impacts Group released information on several new publications involving CIG authors. These papers address issues in the following areas:
— Climate change and biodiversity
— Trends in coastal upwelling
— Climate change impacts on flooding
— Climate change impacts on U.S. dairy production
— Climate change adaptation in forested ecosystems of the North Cascades
— Climate change and very large wildfires
Angling success is higher when fishing for hatchery raised trout than it is for trout grown in a more natural setting, even when that more natural environment is created in a hatchery.
Tests over the past three years involving the drawdown of the Upper Willamette River Basin’s Fall Creek Reservoir to run-of-river levels in late fall have proven so successful at pushing juvenile salmon and steelhead downriver safely that the U.S. Corps of Engineers plans to employ the strategy annually until further notice.
Wild steelhead have a greater chance at survival to return to spawn than do hatchery steelhead, but they are also the fish at a higher risk of predation by sea birds.
Bellevue, Wash.,-based Whooshh Innovations (www.whooshh.com) on Wednesday announced that its proprietary Whooshh Fish Transport System — also known as the Salmon Cannon — has won the prestigious “Best of What’s New Award” from Popular Science magazine.
The historic, first-time-ever season for coho salmon in Idaho will end for the year Sunday, Nov. 16 in the Clearwater River basin.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will host a public meeting Nov. 20 in Cathlamet, Wash., to begin the process of developing steelhead management plans for several tributaries to the Columbia River.
A follow-up study to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan on March 11, 2011, places the blame for most radiocaesium contamination in salmonids directly on the fish’s food supply, not on the water that surrounds them.
An increased presence of sea lions in the Columbia River estuary in springtime is taking a huge bite out of a spring chinook salmon run that include species listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council gave its conditional approval for the continuation of funding for a Yakama Nation project aimed at determining whether beleaguered upper Columbia steelhead populations can get a reproductive boost through the “reconditioning” of fish with an urge to spawn a second time.
The Colville Confederated Tribes got the go-ahead to continue development of a stock assessment that they hope will guide co-managers, including Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Spokane Tribe, in managing fisheries for a “neglected” fish stock — Lake Roosevelt burbot.
It may soon be unacceptable for steelhead anglers in Washington state to return a steelhead they catch on selected rivers if the fish in hand originated from a hatchery.
A combination of federal budget cuts and higher operating costs have forced the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to reduce salmon and steelhead production at three of its lower Columbia River fish hatchery facilities and plant juvenile coho salmon into a regional lake this fall.
This year’s fall chinook salmon return to the Columbia River basin was supersized, as advertised, and motivated record angler trips to such places as central Washington’s “Hanford Reach,” a 50-plus mile stretch known as home to the basin’s largest remaining wild population of the species.
Biologists confirmed what they had heard as rumor from lake fishermen, that both fin-clipped and unmarked chinook salmon inhabit Green Peter Reservoir on the Middle Santiam River and spawn in Quartzville Creek in the upper Willamette River watershed.
A lake trout eradication effort in Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho, could also take up to 55,000 lake whitefish, an introduced fish that can live over 40 years.
The Columbia River Compact on Oct. 23 approved what are likely to be its final Columbia River mainstem commercial fishing decisions this year, approving the tribal sale of salmon and other fishes caught with hoop and dip nets and with hook and line through the end of the year, and setting lower river non-tribal gill-net fisheries that stretch through today.
In its annual report “Fisheries of the United States 2013” released this week NOAA Fisheries announced that U.S. fishermen landed 9.9 billion pounds of fish and shellfish, an increase of 245 million pounds from 2012 and that the value of those fish weighed in at $5.5 billion, representing an increase of $388 million from 2012.
Federal, state, local and tribal officials from both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border gathered Oct. 9 at the top of Idaho’s panhandle to celebrate the latest, large step toward fulfillment of long-held dream held, most particularly, by the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho.
Survival estimates for juvenile steelhead moving down through the Columbia-Snake river hydro system during the 2014 spring-summer outmigration were so high – nearly 10 percent higher than the next best in a data record that goes back to 1997 – that researchers from NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science say they need to review their statistical modeling methods and assumptions.
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.
Pacific sleeper sharks, a large, slow-moving species thought of as primarily a scavenger or predator of fish, may be preying on something a bit larger – protected Steller sea lions in the Gulf of Alaska.
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.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week announced it is seeking information from the scientific community, the public and interested stakeholders on its proposal to protect the West Coast population of fisher as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
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.
The Upper Columbia Salmon Recovery Board announced in mid-September the release of a comprehensive report on habitat work in the region over the past 13 years (1999-2012) – a report the panel says is the first of its kind in the salmon recovery arena.
Parasites found in juvenile salmon in the Pacific Ocean after they make their break from the freshwater of the Columbia River have made possible a scientific link between salmon survival and changes at the base of the food web caused by ocean conditions.
Adding artificial nutrients — a stand-in for salmon carcasses — in several of Idaho’s upper Salmon River nutrient-poor streams, does not improve the presence of bacteria and algae that make up the “biofilm crop” on a stream’s rocks. It may, however, increase the number of water born insects in the stream.
A Warrenton, Oregon, charter boat captain pleaded guilty and was sentenced earlier this month for harvesting federally protected wild coho salmon on charter trips with sport fishing clients. The year-long investigation by federal and state officers also led to state fish and wildlife charges against the captain of the Hawk II.
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.
Lorraine Loomis, a Swinomish tribal member, has been elected chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
She replaces the late Billy Frank Jr., who served as NWIFC chairman for more than 30 years. Frank died on May 5, 2014 at the age of 83.
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.
A collaborative project between researchers in Oregon and Asia last year helped establish a new breeding colony for one of the world’s most endangered seabirds – the Chinese crested tern – which then had a global population estimated at fewer than 50 birds.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that it is initiating its formal status review of the greater sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act by requesting information from a broad array of state and federal agencies and tribes.
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.
Idaho Power Company biologists recently captured one of the largest fish it has encountered during a three-year survey of the white sturgeon fish population in the lower Snake River.
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.
With harvests still well within prescribed limits and salmon forecasts growing ever larger, fisheries were approved Wednesday for both the tribal (upstream of Bonneville Dam) and non-tribal (from Bonneville downstream to the mouth of the Columbia river) commercial fleets.
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.
With record number of sockeye salmon coursing up the Columbia River headed for, in large part, the Okanogan River basin, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has once again stretched the daily salmon daily bag limits to allow anglers on the mainstem to take advantage of the bounty.
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.
Results from the first year of a two-year study that is attempting to discover why some adult salmon that arrive at Bonneville Dam are not accounted for at McNary Dam, an upstream journey of 146 river miles, found that survival of radio tagged adult chinook and sockeye salmon is below performance standards set in the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion for salmon and steelhead.
Sockeye salmon, known for their bright red meat and high oil content, are starting to surge up the Columbia River on their spawning mission toward the Okanogan and Wenatchee rivers — which branch off from the big river in central Washington — and toward the Snake River’s Salmon River drainage.
The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and its member tribes (Umatilla, Yakama, Warm Springs and Nez Perce) this week announced the release of the first update to their comprehensive, gravel-to-gravel, fisheries restoration plan, Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit (Spirit of the Salmon).
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.
A still-rising forecast of 2014 adult upriver spring chinook salmon returns to the mouth of the Columbia River this week enabled what is likely the last opportunity for non-tribal commercial fishers to rake in fish during the “spring” season.
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 partnership between the University of Washington and Alaska Department of Fish and Game has yielded a major breakthrough in DNA ‘fin-printing’ this spring, improving the ability to conserve diminishing stocks of chinook salmon.
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.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes completed an initial phase of gill netting on Montana’s Flathead Lake during the last two weeks of April, catching 5,232 lake trout.
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.
The overall forecast for the 2014 return of “upriver” spring chinook to the mouth of the Columbia River has dropped a bit, according to the most recent projection, but the witnessed stream of salmon has proven strong enough to allow state officials to approve a two-day reopening of lower river sport fishery, and a second shot for non-Indian gill-netters.
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.
A study of coho salmon in three small Olympic Peninsula rivers with estuaries show a complex life history that includes juveniles that migrate to sea early in their first year and others that stay in the stream for up to a year before they migrate into the sea where they reside for six or eighteen months.
The Center for Biological Diversity this week filed a formal notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to determine whether five increasingly rare amphibians in the Pacific Northwest warrant consideration for Endangered Species Act protection.
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.
U.S. commercial and recreational saltwater fishing generated more than $199 billion in sales in 2012, a gain of 7 percent over the previous year, with the economic impact of fishing jobs increasing 3 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to a new NOAA Fisheries economics report.
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.
Continued improvement of north Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille kokanee population has the Idaho Department of Fish and Game considering an increase to the harvest limit.
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.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in collaboration with other federal, state and tribal agencies, announced the 2013 Northern Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf population numbers.
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.
Windy conditions for much of January and hazardous weather and a cold river during February reduced angling effort and catch this year, contributing to lower than expected harvest of white sturgeon in the Columbia River reservoir between Bonneville and The Dalles dams.
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.
A study of two rivers in Alaska and the way their fisheries are managed could help Northwest fishery agencies determine how commercial terminal fisheries should be managed.
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.
Fishery experts’ calculations of threatened eulachon (smelt) spawner returns to the Columbia River and lower river tributaries in 2014 are very much works in progress with test fishery sampling mostly completed.
The Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes are poised to move forward with a controversial lake trout suppression plan on Flathead Lake, with gill netting tentatively set to begin as early as April.
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.
Assertions by members of the Northwest congressional delegation that the Bonneville Power Administration is lopping off funding for coded wire tag monitoring of Columbia River basin salmon are greatly overstated, according recent letter from BPA CEO Elliot Mainzer.
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.
Recreational dip-netters will have one more day — Saturday (March 8) — to catch eulachon smelt on the Cowlitz River.
Idaho Fish and Game estimates that last month’s wolf control action in the Lolo elk zone cost approximately $30,000. The entire cost will be paid using license dollars paid by sportsmen and women. Fish and Game receives no state general tax dollars.
Restoring salmon passage to long-blocked habitat in the upper Columbia River basin in the United States and Canada should be investigated and implemented as a key element of integrating ecosystem considerations into a new Columbia River Treaty, according to a report developed by a coalition of 15 Columbia River basin tribes and Canadian First Nations.
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.
Smelt dippers in southwest Washington’s Cowlitz River have so far come up dry during what is an experimental fishery aimed at helping assess the status of the small fish, a species officially named Columbia River eulachon, that was listed in 2010 under the federal Endangered Species Act as threatened.
Archaeological data from 171 sites in southeast Alaska, British Columbia and Washington indicate that management efforts along the Pacific Coast need to take a longer view into the past to better protect fisheries for the future, according a research report due for publication in the scientific journal, “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”
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.
Anglers will have an additional 14 days of winter sturgeon fishing on the Columbia River between Bonneville and The Dalles dams this year under rules adopted Thursday by fishery managers from Oregon and Washington.
I write in response to an article in the Jan. 31 edition of the Columbia Basin Bulletin on the new floating net pens being placed in Cathlamet Channel.
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.
The states of Oregon and Washington, with a head nod from the federal government, this week approved limited fisheries this winter for Columbia River eulachon (smelt), a species that in 2010 was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because of extremely low population levels.
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.
With less than half the anticipated harvest through the Jan. 20 closure date, Oregon and Washington fishery managers decided this week to reopen the Columbia River’s Bonneville Pool to white sturgeon sturgeon retention Feb. 1-17.
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.
Lagging population estimates in past years have forced state managers to close fisheries for two favored fish targets, one big and one small, n the lower Columbia River and tributaries.
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.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released its final Bristol Bay Assessment describing potential impacts to salmon and ecological resources from proposed large-scale copper and gold mining in Bristol Bay, Alaska.
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.
Do Columbia/Snake river basin salmon recovery efforts need a “champion”? And could that champion be the Northwest Power and Conservation Council?
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.
U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., on Thursday unveiled a draft proposal to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which was last authorized by Congress in 2006 through fiscal year 2013.
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced this week that Interior’s Northwest Climate Science Center http://www.doi.gov/csc/northwest/index.cfm is awarding nearly $1.3 million to universities and other partners for research to assist Native Americans and federal and state land managers plan for and adapt to climate change.
NOAA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week announced the opening of a 90-day public comment period on the agencies’ proposal to “disapprove” Oregon’s coastal nonpoint pollution control program.
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.
Oregon and Washington fishery managers took a cautious approach this week, approving a scaled back 19-day white sturgeon fishing season in January in the Columbia River reservoir upstream of Bonneville Dam that aims to reserve some of the year’s harvest allocation for midsummer.
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.
Tribal representatives from north and south of the border, as well as other resource managers, last week stressed their case that a new U.S.-Canada management agreement for the Columbia River hydropower system should include, for the first time, environmental initiatives.
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.
NOAA has authored a new report, “Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Coastal Watersheds of the Conterminous United States 2004-2009,” with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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.
It’s back to the past for operations at northern Idaho’s Albeni Falls Dam, which has over the past decade been manipulated on the assumption that maintaining a higher wintertime elevation of Lake Pend Oreille would enhance shoreline spawning of prized kokanee salmon.
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.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
