A total of 15 spring chinook have been trapped this year and transported around the Pelton Round Butte hydro project for release into Lake Billy Chinook to become the first of the species to ply the central Oregon waters of the Crooked, Metolius and upper Deschutes rivers in 50 years.
The Kalispel Tribe of Indians has signed a 10-year, $39.5 million agreement with federal agencies that focuses on actions to address impacts of Albeni Falls Dam on fish and wildlife in the area of Lake Pend Oreille and the tribe’s reservation along the Pend Oreille River about 55 miles north of Spokane.
A new online tool called the Salmon Conservation Reporting Engine (SCoRE) consolidates current information about Washington state’s salmon populations, hatchery production, conservation guidelines and other aspects of salmon management in a single website.
According to a feature article posted by NOAA Fisheries on its Northwest Fisheries Science Center web site, only two of the 173 West Coast fish stocks — Pacific bigeye tuna and Pacific bluefin tuna — are now subject to overfishing, meaning that 171 stocks currently are harvested at a sustainable rate.
In between summertime fishing seasons this year for chinook and sockeye salmon, steelhead and other fish stocks, tribal fishermen could well be setting their sights on American shad, a non-native species that also heads up the Columbia River system each year to spawn.
The Technical Advisory Committee provided a good news-bad news update to the Columbia River Compact Thursday, saying that hopes for a bountiful summer chinook salmon run and harvest have dimmed, but that the 2012 sockeye return to the Columbia River basin continues to surge upstream at what is a record pace.
A wetter than normal springtime has served to wipe away most of the last remnants of snowpack above west-central Idaho’s Dworshak Dam but has also served to fill the valued reservoir of water well in advance of the annual launch of flow augmentation for migrating salmon and steelhead.
Increased flows, lower temperatures and “outright removal of barriers” like irrigation diversion dams would dramatically increase the passage and, thereby, the survival of Pacific lamprey in the Umatilla River, according to a paper published in June in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management.
The upriver spring chinook salmon return to the Columbia-Snake river system started with high hopes — i.e. a preseason forecast that would have been the fourth highest on a record dating back to 1980 — has turned out to be about “average,” according to preliminary data compiled by the Technical Advisory Committee in a post season report.
The rise of ocean infrastructure development to tap energy sources such as tides, offshore wind and natural gas will require more pile driving, the practice of pounding long, hollow steel pipes called piles into the ocean floor to support energy turbines and other structures.
A program started 21 years ago with a principle goal of warding off extinction of the Snake River sockeye run now has — with the go-ahead to build a new hatchery — recovery in the “cross hairs,” the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s Paul Kline told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Wednesday.
It’s not a new season until tomorrow (June 16)) but there are already signs aplenty that the summer harvest management period on the lower Columbia, as well as farther up the river system, could be a good one.
Juvenile salmon collected at dams and transported down through the Columbia-Snake hydro system aboard barges show no ill effects from that conveyance, according to a research paper published this week.
The Bonneville Power Administration calculates that it had expenditures of $650 million in fiscal year 2011 for fish and wildlife mitigation activities across the Columbia-Snake River basin, according to the “2011 Expenditures Report: Columbia River Fish and Wildlife Program.”
Language authored by U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-WA, to direct federal agencies to protect Northwest salmon from predatory birds on the Columbia River passed the House of Representatives last week by a vote of 255 to 165.
A first group of adult spring chinook salmon – likely about five fish — were scheduled to be released today above the Pelton Round Butte Hydro project on the Deschutes River in central Oregon on their way to spawning grounds on the Deschutes, Crooked and Metolius rivers, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The annual harvest of burbot from the Kootenai River by sport and commercial fisherman in north Idaho’s panhandle “prior to 1972 was likely in the tens of thousands of kg,” according to a 2011-2016 research plan developed to further restoration of what has become a decimated species.
The states of Oregon and Washington on Wednesday figured four lower Columbia River treaty tribes had a choice during this late “spring” fishing season on the mainstem Columbia River if harvests are to stay under Endangered Species Act limits.
Not having enough chinook salmon to eat stresses out southern resident killer whales in the Pacific Northwest more than having boatloads of whale watchers nearby, according to hormone levels of whales summering in the Salish Sea.
Fisheries officials on Tuesday again downgraded their estimate of the number of adult upriver spring chinook salmon that are expected to return to the mouth of the Columbia, dropping the projection from 216,500 to 209,400 fish.
An Oregon election initiative aimed at banning the use of gill nets in “inland” waters such as the Columbia River has gained considerable steam over the past month and a half with the collection of more than 105,000 signatures, well over the 87,213 needed to get the measure on the Nov. 6 ballot.
It was up and at ‘em before first light Wednesday for Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife fishery biologists Jeff Neal and Brent Smith, who are among those monitoring the first sport fishery in 36 years on wild spring chinook salmon in the John Day River in the north-central part of the state.
A greater percent of Columbia River flows this week through Bonneville Dam have once again been steered southward, this time in anticipation of the arrival of a large portion of the ocean-bound juvenile sockeye salmon that originated in central Idaho’s Stanley basin.
Catherine Creek, a tributary to the Grande Ronde River in the northeast corner of Oregon, will open to fishing for hatchery spring chinook salmon Saturday, the first such opening in 34 years.
Anglers got a holiday treat this week with the approval of a Saturday-Sunday reopening of the lower Columbia River spring chinook salmon fishery, which had been closed since April 13.
The future of chum salmon in the Lewis River basin may depend on 105,000 juvenile hatchery fish released into the east fork last week by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in an attempt to infuse the existing wild population.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon on Tuesday heard contradictory testimony about the effect of California sea lion predation on Columbia River salmon runs, and about the “harm” sustained by humans because of that predation – and, on the other side, the harm to humans resulting from lethal removal of the big pinnipeds.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday opted for an operational change at the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam intended to reduce what has been a high level of descaling of juvenile sockeye salmon passing via the hydro project’s Powerhouse No. 2.
NOAA Fisheries has released a proposed Endangered Species Act recovery plan for Lower Columbia River salmon and steelhead, and is requesting public review and comment.
The journal Environmental Biology of Fishes is publishing a special edition this May called “Ecological Interactions of Hatchery and Wild Salmon.”
This week during the first tsunami debris oversight hearing, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) sought answers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on what the nation’s plan is to address the threat tsunami debris poses to coastal economies up and down the U.S. West Coast.
Salmon savants – those charged with predicting adult fish returns — are having to go back to the drawing board these days with the spawners stalling, teasing, tantalizing and most recently…overwhelming counters on the lower Columbia River.
The straying of wild salmon from their specific natal water can be a good thing in many cases, according to a research paper produced by University of Idaho scientists and published recently in the April edition of the Ecological Society of America’s journal, Ecology.
Northern Idaho’s south Selkirk Mountains herd of caribou should be taken off the federal Endangered Species Act list, because the herd isn’t distinct in a legally or biologically relevant way from the vast population of caribou elsewhere on the North American continent, according to a “delisting” petition filed this week by the Pacific Legal Foundation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A full-fledged effort to knock back non-native northern pike populations in eastern Washington’s Box Canyon reservoir on the Pend Oreille River has proved a success so far.
With salmon counts lagging at the Bonneville Dam, fish and hydro system managers have ventured into relatively new territory by holding back a share of the incoming for a four-hour period Thursday from a surging Columbia River in an attempt to entice movement of what was expected to be a bumper upriver run.
With the 2012 spring chinook salmon run expected to number 314,200 adults entering the Columbia River, and sea lion take expected to be only about two-thirds of 1 percent of those fish, “there is no pressing need to continue to kill federally protected wildlife in the next few weeks, and before this case can be heard on the merits,” according to a brief filed April 27 in U.S. District Court in Portland.
Anglers will have at least four more days to fish for hatchery-reared spring chinook salmon on a section of the Columbia River stretching 163 miles upstream from Bonneville Dam.
Loss of biodiversity appears to affect ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to results of a new study by an international research team.
NOAA Fisheries has released the draft final report of the “Independent Science Panel of the Bilateral Scientific Workshop Process to Evaluate the Effects of Salmon Fisheries on Southern Resident Killer Whales.”
The state of Oregon is sending out word that it wants to have more management options in dealing with the double-crested cormorants — including shooting the big birds – to control impacts on hatchery-produced and wild juvenile salmon that stream into estuaries along the coast.
NOAA Fisheries “provided reasoned interpretations” of Marine Mammal Protection Act provisions earlier this year in granting the states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington authority to kill California sea lions that are known to be preying on wild salmon stocks in the lower Columbia River, according to recent federal court filings.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has expanded the popular fishing area at the mouth of the Wind River in the southwest part of the state by moving the outside boundary about 250 yards out into the Columbia River.
Since April 13, national fish hatcheries in the Columbia River Gorge have released more than 10 million juvenile chinook salmon into the lower Columbia River and its tributaries, continuing a 70-year program that supports tribal and sport fish harvests worth millions of dollars.
Three projects are planned by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation this spring and summer to measure the success of lamprey passage and reintroduction programs started 12 years ago on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
Inside the National Guard Armory at Okanogan, Wash., Leroy and Mylan Williams teach a small crowd of onlookers the nearly lost art of building fish nets by hand. The father and son are part of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation and are teaching other tribal members how to build and use traditional fishing gear.
Catch rates have improved for both sport and commercial fisheries but apprehension over what appears to be a late arriving, or light, spring chinook salmon run to the Columbia-Snake river system has forced state managers to pause at least until a run-size estimate can be recalculated in early May.
With hundreds of thousands of young salmon now making their way toward the ocean, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is ramping up efforts to make sure they get there and aren’t picked off by hungry birds along the way.
A large, global move to produce more energy from forest biomass may be possible and already is beginning in some places, but scientists say in a new analysis that such large-scale bioenergy production from forest biomass is unsustainable and will increase greenhouse gas emissions.
Mother Nature, in the form of a big log flushed down the Columbia River by high early spring flows, served to stall the release nearly 6 million subyearling Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery “tule” fall chinook – but by only two days much to the relief of everyone involved.
Both sport and commercial fishermen continue to get a bite at the apple as fishery managers await what they still believe will be a relatively high return of upriver spring chinook salmon to the Columbia-Snake river system.
Four sections of the Snake River in southeast Washington will open to fishing for spring chinook salmon this month, starting April 20 with the stretch below Ice Harbor Dam.
New research suggests that allowing more Pacific salmon to spawn in coastal streams will not only benefit the natural environment, including grizzly bears, but could also lead to more salmon in the ocean and thus larger salmon harvests in the long term.
With the lower Columbia River running high, cold and murky and filled with debris, anglers have had little success so far this spring – a fact that prompted state managers on Thursday to allow an extra week of early-season salmon fishing.
Oregon’s Deschutes River basin is buzzing with the knowledge of good works completed, and more to come, in the effort to boost existing wild and hatchery produced salmon and steelhead populations, and create new ones.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council on Thursday adopted a set of ocean salmon seasons for this coming summer that provides both recreational and commercial opportunities up and down the Oregon, Washington and California coasts.
State and tribal co-managers meeting in Seattle on Thursday agreed on a package of salmon fisheries that they says meets conservation goals for wild salmon populations, while providing fishing opportunities on healthy stocks.
A task force that conducted one of the most comprehensive analyses of global “forage fish” populations issued its report this week, which strongly recommends implementing more conservative catch limits for these crucial prey species.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service announced Monday that, after considering the “best scientific and commercial data available, it has decided that chinook salmon stocks in the Upper Klamath and Trinity rivers basin of southern Oregon and northern California do not warrant listing as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
For eight years and counting, the timing of the annual surge of spring chinook up the Columbia River has lagged behind previous experience.
And the hope this year for fishers and fish conservationists is that that trend is continuing, since the number of upriver spring chinook passing over Bonneville Dam through March 27 has totaled only 33 adult fish.
For 28 years the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has been responsible for counting adult salmon, steelhead and other fish that pass upstream through Columbia and Snake River hydro projects each year. But a change could be in the offing.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that the public will have an additional 60 days to submit comments regarding the agency’s proposed critical habitat designation for the southern Selkirk Mountains woodland caribou, an endangered mammal known to occur in the states of Idaho and Washington and in British Columbia, Canada.
In the search for sustainability of the ocean’s fisheries, can solutions be found in the ancient past?
State officials are hoping that the third time is the charm as regards to their desire to remove salmon-munching California sea lions from the lower Columbia River.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has launched a process aimed at determining what management actions might be undertaken to reduce avian predators’ impacts on protected Columbia and Snake River salmon and steelhead in the mid-Columbia plateau region.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday denied a challenge to congressional action that effectively de-listed wolves in the Northern Rockies last year.
Between now and May the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff will mull independent scientific assessments and testimony from an international group of proponents and others regarding the potential value Pacific Ocean research might provide in efforts to recover imperiled Columbia River basin salmon stocks.
The Bonneville Power Administration aims to clamp down in some regards on Integrated Fish and Wildlife Program spending that so far in fiscal year 2012 is “running hot.”
Encouraged by predictions of plentiful salmon returns along the West Coast, the Pacific Fishery Management Council on Wednesday released three alternatives for managing salmon fisheries this summer along the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington.
The 2011 Interagency Annual Report for the Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Population, compiled by federal, state and tribal agencies, estimates that the population increased to 1,774 wolves and 109 breeding pairs.
For the first time in more than three decades the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will release a substantial number of spring chinook salmon into the Coast Fork Willamette River in hopes of establishing a recreational fishery between Cottage Grove and Springfield.
More than 100 boats were counted on the lower Columbia River one day in late February but only five salmon were caught (two fin-clipped hatchery fish were reeled in and kept and three chinook were released) during the week ending Feb. 26, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. A total of total of 291 boat anglers, and 201 sportsmen fishing from the river bank, were counted during the week on the lower river.
Federal, state and tribal fishery officials are huddled this week in Sacramento to, among other things, devise a range of summertime fishery strategies for what is expected to be relatively bountiful salmon harvests off the coasts of Oregon, Washington and California this year.
Northern Idaho’s Yellowdog Creek, impaired for decades by eroding forest road sediment, is coming back to life thanks to the work of local partnership between the U.S. Forest Service, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Adult salmon and steelhead, with a little boost from their human friends, may spawn this year in the upper Deschutes, Metolius and Crooked river basins for the first time in more than 50 years.
A total of 8,097 naturally produced Snake River adult fall chinook salmon in 2011 made their way back from the Pacific and up through eight Columbia and Snake river hydro projects, according preliminary estimates produced by federal, state and tribal fishery experts.
The Grant County Public Utility District commissioners announced Thursday that they planned to plunge ahead with construction of juvenile salmon rearing facilities along central Washington’s White River despite last week’s rejection of requests for state and local building permits.
Fishery officials predict a return to the mouth of the Columbia River this year of 353,500 adult “upriver bright” fall chinook salmon, a total that would be the fourth largest on a record dating back to 1964.
Oregon fishery managers announced Thursday that the Willamette River downstream from Willamette Falls, including Multnomah Channel and the Gilbert River just north of Portland, will not be open to sturgeon retention on Feb. 24-25 as had been planned.
In cooperation with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the USDA Wildlife Services has completed a wolf control action in northern Idaho’s Lolo zone.
According to a preliminary report released this week a total of 5,010 fall chinook salmon redds – supposed egg-filled nests that will produce a new generation — were observed in the lower Snake River and its tributaries this past fall, which is the second highest count since inception of intensive surveys in 1988.
The confluence of Wolf Creek and the North Fork of the Touchet River in southeastern Washington is now permanently protected by a conservation easement held by Blue Mountain Land Trust.
Scientists have found that only about 10 percent of the fall-run chinook salmon spawning in California’s Mokelumne River are naturally produced wild salmon. A massive influx of hatchery-raised fish that return to spawn in the wild is masking the fact that too few wild fish are returning to sustain a natural population in the river.
Oregon and Washington fishery managers announced Wednesday the closure of the white sturgeon “retention” season in the Columbia River mainstem and tributaries from Bonneville Dam upstream to The Dalles Dam at the end of the day Friday, Feb. 17.
Anglers who turn in their 2011 combined angling tag before May 18, 2012 could win one of 100 outdoor products, including a complete drift boat package.
This week consumer groups Food & Water Watch, Consumers Union, and the Center for Food Safety submitted a formal petition asking the Food and Drug Administration to classify and evaluate AquaBounty’s “AquAdvantage” genetically engineered salmon and all of its components as a food additive.
Researchers from NOAA’s Fisheries Service, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the private Kintama Research Services, Ltd., and Oregon State University have teamed up to explain why their ocean research benefits a program aimed at mitigating effects on fish and wildlife in freshwater.
A return to old ways could well “make a contribution to recovery” of a Willamette spring chinook stock that was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999.
Blooms, or proliferation, of jellyfish have shown a substantial, visible impact on coastal populations — clogged nets for fishermen, stinging waters for tourists, even choked intake lines for power plants — and recent media reports have created a perception that the world’s oceans are experiencing increases in jellyfish due to human activities such as global warming and overharvesting of fish.
The California Department of Fish and Game recently released adult coho salmon in Salmon Creek, Sonoma County to reestablish a coho salmon population.
There has been a salmon sighting.
The first two upriver spring chinook of the year were counted Wednesday crossing up and over the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam. The counts at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ fish ladders included one adult fish and one early-maturing “jack,” that latter being a chinook that returned after one year in the ocean.
Representatives of upriver and downriver tribes, and of the state of Idaho, trooped to the microphone Thursday to express dissatisfaction with the way the states of Oregon and Washington manage fisheries in the lower Columbia River aimed at spring chinook salmon.
Tighter catch “guidelines” or allocations were confirmed Thursday for sport and commercial fisheries for white sturgeon on the lower river in actions taken by the Columbia River Compact and a joint Oregon/Washington sport fishing panel.
NOAA has announced the designation of additional critical habitat to provide protection for endangered leatherback sea turtles along the U.S. West Coast. NOAA is designating 41,914 square miles of marine habitat in the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington.
For the third straight year, fish and wildlife directors from Washington and Oregon have agreed to reduce the catch of white sturgeon on the lower Columbia River, where the species has declined in abundance in recent years.
Projects aimed at satisfying the goals of the Willamette Project biological opinion will take a large share, about $40 million, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 2012 Columbia River Fish Mitigation budget, which is expected to total about $125.8 million.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Walla Walla District has offered for public comment its plan to re-implement a fertilization program in west-central Idaho’s Dworshak Dam reservoir in hope of reinvigorating the food chain and, as a result, the prized kokanee fishery and protected bull trout population.
“Our task is to find the sweet spot,” NOAA Fisheries’ Rob Jones said Tuesday of Columbia River basin fish managers’ ongoing quest to minimize the risk posed by hatchery production to remnant salmon and steelhead populations that continue to spawn in the wild.
For the third straight year, fishery managers from Washington and Oregon plan to reduce the allowable catch of white sturgeon on the lower Columbia River, where the species’ abundance has been declining since 2007.
Lower Columbia River salmon and steelhead sport harvests, in some cases, were the best on record in 2011 and, with rosy return forecasts for many species, the fishing should be good again in 2012, according “preliminary draft” data compiled by the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife.
A recently completed draft “Research, Monitoring and Evaluation” plan represents a “significant step” toward the development of a framework to guide efforts to revive salmon populations and other fish stocks in Oregon’s Willamette River valley, according to a report issued by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
For a second straight year the traditional Jan. 1 opener for white sturgeon retention on the lower Willamette River in western Oregon, including Multnomah Channel and the Gilbert River, will be delayed because of an anticipated cut in the harvest quota.
A recently published study says that in just one generation traits are selected that allow fish to survive and prosper in the hatchery environment.
A proposed Oregon ballot initiative that would ban the use of non-Indian gillnets in the Columbia River mainstem reached a new stage this week with the issuing of a “modified” title and summary in answer to directions from the state Supreme Court.
Columbia River basin fish and wildlife project sponsors have learned a lot about how artificial production, fish passage and habit restoration actions affect fish populations, but putting that knowledge to work will require several more giant steps, according to the “Retrospective Report 2011” completed last week by the Independent Scientific Review Panel.
Columbia River fishery managers are predicting strong returns in 2012, including a forecast return to the mouth of the river of 314,200 adult spring chinook salmon. Such a return would be the fourth largest return on a record dating back to 1938.
Early forecasts by fishery officials predict strong Columbia-Snake river salmon returns almost across the board in 2012. And in the case of sockeye and summer chinook, record runs are predicted.
The Washington Salmon Recovery Funding Board on Monday announced the award of nearly $30 million in grants to organizations around the state to help improve the lot of salmon.
The 2011 steelhead return was 11-fish strong as of Monday with more fish expected to trickle in, and completed sockeye and spring chinook salmon runs were small too. All, however, are encouraging signs for those involved in an effort to restore those fish stocks in central Oregon’s Metolius, Crooked and upper Deschutes rivers.
Plaintiffs have asked for another shot at convincing a new presiding judge to add two new processes to a court-ordered remand intended to rebuild the federal government’s Columbia/Snake river salmon protection plan.
Combined losses of juvenile salmon and steelhead to predation by Caspian terns and double-crested cormorants in the Columbia River estuary were about 27 million smolts, according to preliminary data presented Tuesday to researchers during a gathering in Walla Walla, Wash.
Banning non-tribal commercial gill-net fishing on the mainstem Columbia River remains a hot topic with comments flooding in regarding two additional draft ballot titles based on Oregon voter initiative proposals submitted early in November.
NOAA Fisheries Service will hold a public meeting Monday (Dec. 5) in Omak, Wash., to continue its discussion of whether it is appropriate to reintroduce Upper Columbia spring-run chinook salmon to the Okanogan River basin as an “experimental” population.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week announced a proposal to designate critical habitat for southern Selkirk Mountains caribou, an endangered woodland mammal protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Consideration of a state request to lethally remove California sea lions from the lower Columbia River nudged forward this week with completion of a summary of discussions held Oct. 24 by the Pinniped Fishery Interaction Task Force.
The federal government on Wednesday reiterated its intent to work with the region’s tribes and states to respond to U.S. District Court Judge James Redden’s Aug. 2 order requiring a bolstering of habitat actions in the federal plan to restore Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says the preliminary estimate of the exvessel value of the 2011 Alaska commercial salmon harvest is $603 million.
Anglers participating in a special reward program this year hauled more than 155,000 northern pikeminnow from the Columbia and Snake rivers, thus saving an estimated 4 million young salmon and steelhead from getting eaten by the hungry predators.
More than 250 steelhead will be stocked in the Boise River on Thursday, Nov. 10, the first of four planned stocking efforts during the next few weeks.
The fisheries program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in association with state agencies and other conservation organizations, contributes $3.6 billion to the nation’s economy and supports 68,000 jobs across the country, according to a new report issued by the agency.
Some fracturing of support for the lethal removal of predatory California sea lions from the lower Columbia emerged this week during a discussion by the Pinniped-Salmon Interaction Task Force in Portland.
Pink salmon returns throughout the north Pacific Ocean rim have in recent years been extraordinarily large, so much so that fishery experts are gathering at month’s end in Vancouver, British Columbia, to ponder recent production trends and to identify future research needs.
The highly contagious marine influenza virus, Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) has for the first time been officially reported after being found in the Pacific Ocean on British Columbia’s central coast.
Following a pilot test in September, leaders from four treaty-fishing tribes, are satisfied that they can meet the waste water requirements of the city of Bingen and Washington Department of Ecology for a fish processing facility along the Columbia River.
Survival of hatchery spring chinook salmon released this past spring below central Washington’s Lake Wenatchee was substantially higher (approximately 45 percent) than for those released above the lake (approximately 10 percent).
Through September, an estimated 26,591 adult fall chinook salmon have been caught and kept during 2011’s fall lower Columbia River.
That catch eclipses the previous record, 26,195 fish caught in 2003, according to data compiled by the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife. The record will increase after the October catch is added to August-September totals. The records began in 1969.
Idaho Power began its annual Fall Chinook Program early this week by reducing outflow from Hells Canyon Dam on the Snake River to 14,000 cubic feet per second to provide steady flows for chinook salmon during their spawning season.
“Major dam improvements occurred, acres of habitat were improved, predators were controlled, and fish status overall was good,” according the conclusion of the annual report summarizing a third year of implementation of the 10-year Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion.
Coho salmon fisheries opened Wednesday on the Wenatchee and Methow rivers and Icicle Creek (a tributary to the Wenatchee in central Washington), providing another target for anglers already chasing hatchery chinook salmon and steelhead.
A forest may look like a forest, have many of the same trees that used to live there, but still lose the ecological, economic or cultural values that once made it what it was, researchers suggest this week in articles in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.
The 2011 spring season’s high, cool flows down through the Columbia-Snake river hydro system may have been both a blessing and a curse, with overall survival of juvenile steelhead and yearling spring chinook above and near, respectively, long-term averages but lagging behind the past two years’ rates.
The final count is nearly in, with this year’s sockeye salmon return to central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley standing at 1,100 through Wednesday.
That’s already the second highest total in recent times.
Federal, state and tribal officials on Wednesday approved, though with qualifications, a plan to draw down north Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille to a minimum control elevation of 2,051 this winter and, potentially, hold the reservoir at 2,055 during the winter of 2012-2013 to provide more spawning gravel for wild kokanee.
A two-pronged effort to reduce lake trout populations in Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille is showing success – the reservoir’s kokanee population is rising and the catch rate for predatory lake trout falls with every passing year.
The overall forecast for this year’s Columbia River basin upriver fall chinook return has shrunk a bit since the preseason given lower than expected counts at hydro project fish ladders. But the Snake River portion of that run is meeting expectations.
On Wednesday (Sept. 28), the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife opened a selective fishery for hatchery steelhead on the upper Columbia River above Rock Island Dam, and on the Wenatchee, Icicle, Entiat, Methow, and Okanogan rivers.
The Fish Passage Center has added another level of detail to its analysis of how Snake River salmon and steelhead, primarily, fare that migrate down through the Columbia/Snake River hydro system as juveniles or, alternatively, ride past the dams aboard barges.
It was smiles all around Wednesday for those watching the capture of tule fall chinook salmon in southwest Washington’s lower White Salmon River and the fishes’ release upstream, above the soon-to-be-removed Condit Dam.
Proponents and foes alike last week lined up to ask the Oregon Supreme Court to require a rewriting of an election ballot title that would serve to ban non-Indian commercial gill-nets on the mainstem Columbia River under the state’s jurisdiction.
The Sept. 15 updated forecast for Hanford upriver fall chinook salmon, like in-season forecasts for points downriver, downsizes expectations but still includes a good number of fish.
Tribal commercial fishers have at least one more week of fishing for salmon in Columbia River mainstem reservoirs above Bonneville Dam this season despite shrinking overall harvest allocations, but the non-Indian gill-net fleet has been put on hold pending a clearer understanding of the size of the 2011 upriver bright fall chinook run.
Last Wednesday anglers got their first chance to catch summer chinook salmon in the tailrace of the hydroelectric powerhouse operated by the Chelan County Public Utility District in Chelan.
One of the largest and longest studies done in Oregon on the impact of timber harvest on stream temperatures has found no average temperature increases on state forest lands, but a 1.3 degree increase on private timber lands.
The recreational white sturgeon retention season on the Columbia River between the Wauna Powerlines near Cathlamet, Wash., and Bonneville Dam will open one week earlier than expected, under rules adopted by fishery managers from Oregon and Washington late last week.
The federal government has completed peer-reviewed scientific and technical studies providing new, detailed information about the environmental and economic impacts of removing four Klamath River hydroelectric dams — fulfilling a major condition of the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement.
NOAA Fisheries Service on Monday announced it has accepted the states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington’s application for renewed authorization under Marine Mammal Protection Act to lethally remove individually identifiable California sea lions that are preying on protected salmon in the lower Columbia River.
The number of pink salmon — called humpback or humpies because spawning males develop humped backs — surging up the Columbia River this late summer is small, in a relative sense, yet huge in a historical sense.
With inflows expected to be higher than normal this year, the Idaho Power Company has begun a steep draft of the Hells Canyon Complex’s Brownlee Reservoir to set the stage for operations this fall and winter to protect what has become a growing annual community of salmon “redds.”
A total of 1,071 Snake River sockeye salmon spawners have completed their journey from the Pacific Ocean to central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley, making it the second largest return since at least the 1950s.
With Bonneville Dam counts lagging a bit, fishery officials this week downsized their estimation of how many upriver fall chinook salmon would return this year to the mouth of the Columbia River.
With a recent uptick in the number of fall chinook salmon spawners passing over the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam, treaty fishers are expecting a corresponding jump in the catch in reservoirs above the project.
The pulse of the Snake River sockeye salmon recovery effort remains strong this year with a total of 738 sockeye salmon spawners — so far — having found their way up 900 miles of the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers to central Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley.
The summer of 2011’s record-setting steelhead season on the mainstem Columbia River is due at least in part to a cooperative marketing effort among the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Travel Oregon, Oregon State Marine Board and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, the groups say.
The mainstem Columbia River is starting to get busy with late season upriver runs of chinook and coho salmon beginning to build, and the fortunes of both anglers and gill-netters improving as well.
Northeast Washington’s Kalispel Tribe has mounted an effort to turn back a wave of invasive northern pike that has devastated local fish populations and warns that other areas of the Columbia River basin could suffer the same consequence.
Anglers intent on filling their freezer with salmon might be advised, strangely enough, to head for a place that not long ago was largely barren of fall chinook.
Beginning Sept. 1 people fishing the strip of lower Snake River from where it hits the Idaho-Washington border upstream along state lines to the Hells Canyon Dam can take home up to six adipose fin clipped adult fall chinook salmon daily.
The estimated kept catch of 9,800 hatchery summer steelhead by anglers on the lower Columbia River so far this month (through Aug. 22) is already an all-time record not just for August but for any month in the past 32 years at the very least, according to data compiled by the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife.
The states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington late last week submitted an application to NOAA Fisheries requesting a new authorization under Section 120 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act to lethally remove California sea lions known to prey on imperiled salmon stocks below the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service has released its recovery plan for upper Willamette chinook and steelhead.
The agency estimates the recovery of upper Willamette chinook and steelhead salmon will take 25 years at the minimum, with a cost of at least $265 million, if the plan’s actions are all implemented.
The Columbia River Compact on Thursday approved additional tribal and non-Indian commercial fishing time with the anticipation that a lower river logjam of fall chinook in the lower Columbia River will break loose and head upstream.
Based on a recently completed review, NOAA Fisheries Service has determined that all 13 Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead stocks now listed under the Endangered Species Act will retain their listing classification as either threatened or endangered.
The state of Oregon late last week released a conservation plan for Upper Willamette chinook salmon and steelhead, fish that have been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1999.
Fishermen accustomed to targeting steelhead in the lower Deschutes River are again steamed about water releases 100 miles upstream which they say are warming the water and making it less inviting, and less hospitable, for fish.
Commenters on both sides of the aisle called to question the Oregon Attorney General’s draft title and summary for a proposed ballot initiative that would ban the use of commercial gill nets on the mainstem Columbia River in favor of seines and “fixed” nets.
The numbers of Snake River sockeye making it home to central Idaho has begun to swell with a total of 65 in hand through Thursday.
The tip of what is hoped to be a fall chinook and summer steelhead iceberg was revealed during early August with modest catches in sport and commercial fisheries in the lower Columbia River mainstem.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says the Wenatchee River salmon fishery—recently opened for the first time in at least 25 years— is the latest result of the “Columbia River Salmon/Steelhead Endorsement” program.
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation fishermen continued their investigation into the use of “selective” commercial-type fishing gear with a venture north of the border this week to snare sockeye salmon from the depths of Lake Osoyoos.
Libby Dam releases are being ramped up to prepare for running the Kootenai River at low flows this fall to allow for the start of a long-planned white sturgeon habitat restoration project.
The states of Oregon and Washington are ready to retrench after hearing late last week that the federal government has revoked their authorization to remove, lethally or otherwise, salmon-chomping California sea lions that feed in the Columbia River.
A return of seven spring chinook and three kokanee-turned-sockeye may seem puny to some, but when you consider the fact they are the first anadromous returns from the Metolius River since 1968, it’s huge.
With more and more adult fish landing in central Idaho’s Redfish Lake to spawn, researchers involved in the long-running Snake River sockeye salmon revival program are beginning to see, as expected, a stronger contribution to the annual juvenile outmigration from naturally produced smolts.
Columbia River fisheries managers are expecting the largest return of fall chinook salmon since 2004 to begin arriving when the fall sport fishing season gets under way Aug. 1.
The Columbia River Compact on Thursday approved what will be the first tribal and non-tribal commercial fisheries of the fall season, which begins Monday, on the mainstem Columbia River.
NOAA Fisheries on Tuesday published in the Federal Register a proposal to allow the reintroduction of upper Columbia spring chinook salmon in the Okanogan River basin in north-central Washington as an experimental population under Endangered Species Act regulations.
It’s a time for celebration of a sort when the first Snake River sockeye salmon each year reaches its home in the central Idaho high country… and that time has arrived.
Fishery managers from Oregon and Washington on July 15 announced that the sockeye salmon season on the Columbia River between the Astoria-Megler Bridge near the river mouth and Highway 395 Bridge near Pasco, Wash., as well as the retention of adult chinook downstream from Bonneville Dam, would be closed Monday, July 18 through July 31.
Tribal commercial fishermen will get the most out of their Columbia River mainstem “summer” salmon fishing season with the approval Thursday of a 5 ½-day fishery that will stretch right up until 6 p.m. Saturday, July 30.
The Coastal Conservation Association on Tuesday gained permission from the Oregon Secretary of State to launch a drive that would ultimately aim to have voters ban the use of gill nets in the state’s waters for the non-tribal, commercial harvest of fish.
— From Babtist Paul Lumley, Executive Director, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
The response from Mr. Bryan Irwin to the July 8, 2011. CBB article “Another Tribal Fishery Aims At Summer Chinook While Allowing Sockeye Escapement” is laden with misleading information, demonstrates a lack of understanding about gill nets, unfairly describes how gill nets impact fish, and shows a general animosity for the tribal fishery.
The 2011 Columbia River basin sockeye salmon run was late arriving but has developed into a strong and steady stream of fish that will likely be the fourth largest on a record dating back to 1980.
Expectations are that Bonneville Power Administration spending on fish and wildlife projects will continue to climb in fiscal year 2012 as the federal power marketing agency works to satisfy long-held obligations, as well as relatively newborn commitments made through the so-called “Fish Accords” and a federal “biological opinion.”
While Libby Dam operators were able to keep flooding at bay in the Bonners Ferry area this year, the extraordinary runoff on the Kootenai River presented a different environment for white sturgeon spawning.
Increased salmon return forecasts, and a reduced “handle” of endangered sockeye salmon, could enable continued tribal commercial fishing through the end of the summer season in the 140 miles of the Columbia River mainstem upstream of Bonneville Dam.
Chinook salmon fishing for Rapid River Hatchery fish is very good in the Lower Salmon and Little Salmon Rivers.
— From Bryan Irwin, Coastal Conservation Association
Re: CBB, July 8, 2011, “Another Tribal Fishery Aims At Summer Chinook While Allowing Sockeye Escapement” https://www.www.www.staging.columbiabasinbulletin.org/410610.aspx
I just read your story regarding the tribes targeting summer Chinook while allowing Sockeye to escape. It includes the following quote:
The tiny adipose fin mounted atop many salmon and trout species may have a function after all, according to a research paper published online Monday in the research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The Kalispel Tribe and federal agencies are proposing a 10-year, $39 million agreement to address the impacts of Albeni Falls Dam on Pend Oreille River fish and wildlife.
Tribal commercial fishermen will focus next week on taking another bite out of their summer chinook salmon harvest allocation while trying to avoid as best they can any additional harvest of sockeye salmon.
Managers at Dworshak National Fish Hatchery have destroyed a total of 332,000 juvenile summer steelhead since April to protect the rest of the hatchery’s fish from a deadly virus.
“…if society-at-large wishes to restore Snake River salmon, steelhead, Pacific lamprey, and white sturgeon to sustainable, fishable levels, then a significant portion of the lower Snake River must be returned to a free-flowing condition by breaching the four lower Snake River dams,” according to a resolution approved recently by 86.4 percent of the Western Division of American Fisheries Society’s members.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has completed a status review of the fisher in the northern Rocky Mountains, and concluded it does not warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act in Idaho, Montana or Wyoming.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a final revised recovery plan for the threatened northern spotted owl, which officials say step up actions that so far have helped stem but not reverse the old-growth forest raptor’s decline.
Purse and beach seines are now being deployed in the lower Columbia River in what is the first test of alternative commercial fishing gear on summer chinook salmon.
Light effort and catch so far allowed Oregon and Washington managers Thursday to extend the white sturgeon season “below Wauna” on the lower Columbia River despite concerns about the population status of the big fish.
The Columbia River Compact on Thursday OK’d an additional Columbia River mainstem summer chinook salmon commercial fishing season for treaty tribes that will allow for the first time since the 1980s the sale of white sturgeon in addition to salmon, steelhead, shad, yellow perch, bass, walleye, catfish and carp.
The desert rangelands of southeast Oregon may seem like an unlikely place to survey fish populations. But in the Whitehorse and Willow creek basins a population of native Lahontan cutthroat trout has defied the extreme conditions and has survived eons of floods, droughts and silty, alkaline water.
After nearly a century of serving PacifiCorp customers, Condit Dam on the White Salmon River in south central Washington will start to be removed this fall, fulfilling a multi-party settlement agreement signed in 1999, and providing access to about 32 miles of relatively pristine habitat for salmon, steelhead and other fish.
Salmon always get the headlines, but two other beleaguered species — Pacific lamprey and bull trout – could also benefit from the opening up of southern Washington’s White Salmon River with removal of Condit Dam.
Conservation objectives spawned in the 1990s because of diminished Snake River spring/summer chinook numbers can help ward off species extinction.
But using the tool of hatchery supplementation might not work in the long run to rebuild populations, warns the Independent Scientific Review Panel in a May 27 “retrospective report.”
Commercial fishers are showing some success at catching American shad this season with both traditional and “experimental” gear on the lower Columbia River despite what has been a relatively meager return of the non-native species from the Pacific Ocean.
NOAA Fisheries today announced that it is retaining the threatened Endangered Species Act listing status of Oregon coast coho salmon.
The critical habitat designation and 4(d) regulations for Oregon coast coho done in February 2008 remain in effect.
NOAA’s draft “scientific integrity policy” is available for public review and comment until Aug. 15.
The policy incorporates the principles of scientific integrity contained in guidance from the White House, and addresses how NOAA ensures quality science in its practices and policies and promotes a culture of transparency, integrity and ethical behavior.
The June 16 start of the summer chinook management period also marked the opening of direct-to-the-public sales of summer chinook by four Columbia River treaty tribes.
Yakama Nation leader Gerald Lewis was selected by officials from the Umatilla, Yakama, Nez Perce and Warm Springs tribes to lead the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission as its new chairman.
During a wet and cool April and May – a time when the Columbia River basin’s water stores usually begin to drain – estimated runoff volumes were boosted by more than 23 million acre feet of water, according to Bonneville Power Administration officials.
With Bonneville Dam fish counts holding strong, sport and commercial fishers are preparing to shift after June 15 from a “spring” chinook emphasis to targeting what is expected to be the highest “summer” chinook salmon return to the Columbia River basin since at least 1980.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on Wednesday recommended more than $30 million in limited, short-term funding for 40 research and monitoring projects aimed at improving knowledge about the status of fish and wildlife in the Columbia River basin.
Over 250 tribal leaders, federal fisheries managers, state fisheries managers, scientists, non-tribal fishers and members of the public attended the Future of Our Salmon conference last week, June 1-2.
A new study by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science shows that jellyfish are more than a nuisance to bathers and boaters, drastically altering marine food webs by shunting food energy from fish toward bacteria.
For the first time since the 1960s spring chinook salmon – two so far – have made the round trip from central Oregon’s upper Deschutes River to the Pacific Ocean and back again to become the initial fruits of reintroduction efforts.
A fishing extension approved last week for the163.5-mile stretch of the Columbia River above Bonneville Dam assures that hatchery-reared spring chinook salmon are fair game through June 15 from the mouth all the way to the point it veers north and leaves the Oregon-Washington border.
The Humane Society of the United States, Wild Fish Conservancy, and two individual citizens today filed a complaint in federal court seeking to nullify a May 13 NOAA Fisheries Service decision authorizing removal, lethal or otherwise, of as many as 255 sea lions at Bonneville Dam over the next three years.
California sea lions haunting the lower Columbia River below Bonneville Dam apparently got the memo.
Within a few days of NOAA Fisheries’ notice that the states of Oregon and Washington would once again be allowed to trap and remove big pinnipeds that are known to prey on salmon, the sea lions began their annual exodus from the river.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service this week proposed designating a population of hatchery-raised steelhead salmon in Oregon’s Deschutes River as “experimental,” which would provide legal protection to anyone who harmed the fish while otherwise acting lawfully.
The effort to rejuvenate a fish stock listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act took another step forward with the release this spring of nearly 114,000 hatchery-reared spring chinook salmon smolts in a variety of acclimation scenarios on the White River basin and in Lake Wenatchee.
With the upriver spring chinook season showing considerable strength, fishery managers from Washington and Oregon on May 13 decided to reopen the popular sport fishery on the lower Columbia River mainstem through June 15.
Chinook salmon reared in the upper stretches of the Columbia River watershed 250 to 500 years ago used to leave their freshwater habitat and enter the estuary – and possibly even the Pacific Ocean – when they were smaller and younger than most of their contemporary counterparts.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service said today it is re-authorizing the states of Washington and Oregon to lethally remove specific California sea lions that congregate 140 miles from the Pacific Ocean just below the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam to eat adult salmon and steelhead swimming upriver to spawn.
American shad heading up the Columbia River this year to spawn will be targeted by both Indian and non-Indian commercial fishers wielding “experimental” fishing gear such as purse and beach seines, drift nets and/or a fish wheel. The goal is to catch large volumes of fish to feed, primarily, a hungry Asian market.
A total of up to $2.25 million will be spent this year to trigger a Kootenai River habitat restoration project in Idaho’s panhandle that is intended to improve spawning conditions and survival for endangered white sturgeon.
A better-late-than-never surge of spring chinook salmon over the lower Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam has brightened the fishing picture for non-Indian sport and commercial and tribal fishers.
Michael Carrier has been appointed assistant regional director for Fishery Resources in the Pacific Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Regional Director Robyn Thorson announced this week.
Thanks to a big burst of salmon swimming up and over Bonneville Dam in recent days, Columbia River anglers will have at least additional four days to catch spring chinook on the mainstem from the hydro project up to the Oregon/Washington border under a re-opened season adopted Wednesday by fishery managers from Oregon and Washington.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final rule Wednesday that officially removes wolves in Montana and Idaho from the Endangered Species list.
The reservoirs behind Priest Rapids, Wanapum and Rocky Reach dams in central Washington got an infusion last week with the release about 15,500 hatchery-raised juvenile white sturgeon that it is hoped will form the foundation for habitat-filling, self-sustaining populations.
The jury is still out regarding the strength of the 2011 upriver spring chinook salmon return to the Columbia River basin despite a sudden flexing of muscle this week.
Three Columbia River Gorge national fish hatcheries recently released more than two million juvenile spring chinook salmon, continuing a 70-year program.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Carson National Fish Hatchery, located in Carson, Wash., recently transferred nearly 250,000 spring chinook pre-smolts (juvenile salmon nearly ready to migrate to the ocean) to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
The National Hydropower Association early this month honored seven hydropower organizations, including central Washington’s Grant County Public Utility District and Portland General Electric Company, with Outstanding Stewards of America’s Waters Awards in recognition of significant, innovative projects that serve as models for the industry.
It’s been cobbled together as an advanced conservation hatchery for more than a decade, and now the Sekokini Springs Westslope Cutthroat Isolation Facility near Coram, Mont., has the final funding it needs for completion.
Two conservation groups on April 15 filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the state Oregon and the federal government in order to stop hatchery operations on northeast Oregon’s Sandy River they say are causing harm to wild salmon and steelhead and violating the Endangered Species Act.
A higher-than-anticipated early commercial catch of upriver spring chinook in Columbia River estuary “select areas” forced Oregon and Washington officials to rescind six fishing periods that had been scheduled this week and next.
Despite continued low spring upriver chinook salmon counts, Oregon and Washington fishery managers said Wednesday they see enough signs that the fish are on the way, though maybe in somewhat smaller numbers than expected, to allow a seven-day extension of the Columbia River mainstem sport season above Bonneville Dam.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council on April 12 approved the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s “Springfield Sockeye Hatchery Master Plan for the Snake River Sockeye Program,” which gives the state agency the go-ahead to begin more in-depth planning with an ultimate goal of building the facility.
This week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region Fisheries Program began an eight- week “Sammie the Salmon” social media campaign, which follows a spring chinook released from Winthrop National Fish Hatchery, near the Canadian border, as she travels 600 miles and passes nine dams on her two-month journey to the Pacific Ocean.
If continued testing this year and next proves favorable, the states of Oregon and Washington could launch a full-fleet commercial salmon fishery on the lower Columbia River in late summer-fall of 2013 employing “selective” fishing gear.
Oregon and Washington officials on Thursday voted to trigger a four-day extension of the lower Columbia River sport spring chinook salmon fishery, saying it posed little risk of breaching harvest limits established in negotiations with treaty tribes and the state of Idaho.
Chum salmon, long considered to be functionally extinct on the Oregon side of the lower Columbia River, might again return to its tributaries if a cooperative effort of the Oregon and Washington departments of fish and wildlife proves successful.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week recommended 100 projects, some new and some ongoing, to improve scientific knowledge about fish and wildlife throughout the Columbia River Basin.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council on Wednesday adopted a set of ocean salmon seasons that it says provides recreational and commercial opportunities up and down the West Coast while still achieving conservation goals for a multitude of individual salmon stocks and providing for escapement for freshwater fisheries.
State and tribal co-managers participating in the Pacific Fishery Management Council process on Wednesday agreed on a package of salmon commercial and recreational fisheries for this spring and summer off the coasts of Oregon, Washington and California.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hatcheries in the Columbia River Gorge this week released over eight million pre-smolt fall chinook salmon into Pacific Northwest rivers.
A decision nearly a year in the making is expected next week when the Northwest Power and Conservation Council passes judgment on a set of 100 fish and wildlife project proposals that are projected to draw an estimated $78 million in funding during fiscal year 2012.
A spring chinook fishery closed April 4, and slowed so far by a sudden flood of spring runoff, gets another shot with an opener on the lower Columbia River mainstem that is expected to last from today through at least next Friday, April 15.
The Idaho Fish and Game Commission has adopted spring chinook seasons as proposed by Idaho Department of Fish and Game managers.
Oregon and Washington fishery managers announced Monday the closure of sturgeon retention in the John Day Dam reservoir of the Columbia River effective at the end of the day Saturday.
After an increase in success last week, anglers appear to be on track to catch their early season allocation of marked, hatchery-reared spring chinook salmon on the lower Columbia River by the planned April 4 closure date.
The commercial fleet’s first spring outing – four hours total on Tuesday night – on the mainstem Columbia River was marginally productive with a catch of less than 10 spring chinook salmon per boat.
Scientists working on the recovery of endangered coho salmon in northern California appreciate success even if it comes in small doses.
Field biologists from the California Department of Fish and Game are reporting the largest number of coho returning to spawn in Sonoma County tributaries of the Russian River in more than a decade.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
