The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific and Mountain-Prairie regions, collaborating with other partners, have provided funding to enhance regional efforts to detect and prevent the spread of invasive mussels.
A quagga-zebra mussel scare in late November in Idaho impressed upon officials there, and elsewhere in the Northwest, that urgency, and money, is needed to guard against the ecosystem and infrastructure havoc that can be caused by the invasive mollusks.
A federal judge this week suggested that a legal strategy might soon be in place to protect salmon and steelhead impacted by the Federal Columbia River Power System.
“I really believe that with a little more work we’ll have a BiOp,” U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden told two crowded courtrooms Monday.
A new interactive Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Web site offers a county-level view of the $2.5 billion spent in Oregon by fishing, hunting and wildlife viewing enthusiasts in 2008.
Beginning Jan. 1, operators of all registered boats (power and sail) and manually powered boats 10 feet or longer are required by a new law to purchase an Aquatic Invasive Species Permit to fund prevention and control programs.
A pair of missives issued over the past week by U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden note progress in the attempt to produce a legal strategy that avoids jeopardizing the survival of salmon and steelhead stock that negotiate the Columbia-Snake river hydro system.
A proposal to allow fluctuations of up to 5 feet in the elevation of north Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille this winter has drawn protests from members of a local advisory group who says such ups and downs would damage the economy and the environment.
British Columbia is joining the state governments of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in an agreement to protect the Columbia River basin from the spread of destructive zebra and quagga mussels, Environment Minister Barry Penner said this week.
A federal judge on Aug. 30 granted a preliminary injunction to “maintain the status quo” while litigants argue over whether Honolulu’s solid waste can be transported to the Northwest and put to rest in a south-central Washington landfill in the Columbia River gorge.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that nearly $600,000 will be awarded to nine projects targeting three of the highest priorities from the “Quagga-Zebra Mussel Action Plan for Western U.S. Waters.”
The Yakama Nation and conservation groups continue to press legal action to prevent the import of Hawaiian garbage for storage at a Columbia River gorge landfill even though the waste transfer plan has been stalled for now.
Longtime wildlife biologist and science leader Carol Schuler has been named assistant regional director for Climate Change and Science Application for the Pacific Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Schuler’s appointment will begin in early December.
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden has called for a round of legal arguments regarding the federal government’s recently released “insurance policy for fish” – a new chapter added to NOAA Fisheries Service’s Federal Columbia River Power System biological opinion on the status of protected salmon and steelhead stocks.
As part of an ongoing effort to keep aquatic invasive species out of Washington waters, all northbound vehicles transporting watercraft past the Ridgefield weigh station on Interstate 5 will be required to stop for an inspection today, Sept. 25.
As part of the Department of the Interior’s effort to build a coordinated strategy to respond to the impacts of climate change on the nation’s natural resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week released a proposed strategic plan intended to guide the agency’s efforts to respond to threats posed by global warming.
Recent research has dismissed the myth that the Columbia River’s lower reaches are simply used as the home stretch for juvenile salmon’s sprint toward the Pacific Ocean.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar this week launched the department’s strategy to address current and future impacts of climate change on America’s land, water, ocean, fish, wildlife, and cultural resources.
Federal entities need to take better notice of the risks that advancing non-native quagga mussels pose to the Columbia River basin’s water-related infrastructure and aquatic species such as salmon.
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Shea on July 29 issued a temporary restraining order barring the shipment Hawaiian garbage up the Columbia River Gorge to Roosevelt Regional Landfill for at least 30 days.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told last week that it needs to get more involved itself, and use its influence to stir up others, if the Columbia River basin is to dodge the looming threat of invasive quagga mussels.
Migrating adult Pacific lamprey forced to navigate through an old fish ladder or climb over the concrete face of Three Mile Falls diversion dam on the Umatilla River in eastern Oregon now have a significantly more convenient route to reach spawning grounds in the upper river.
CBB Shorts: Leadership Changes At USFWS; Clearwater Steelhead Harvest; Warmer Water Impacts On Catch-And-Release
Lower Columbia River biologists, particularly those conducting fish surveys, are encouraged to watch for a nonnative newcomer to the basin — the Amur goby.
CBB Shorts: Testing Water Travel Time; Powder River Spring Chinook; WDFW Ballast Rules For Invasive Species; McNary- John Day Transmission Line
NOAA Fisheries released its final biological opinion Thursday that finds the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of salmon, steelhead and sturgeon listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The threat seems ever closer — and more and more effort and money is being expended to try ward off an invasion of zebra and/or quagga mussels that could potentially paralyze the Columbia River basin’s vast hydro system, city water works, irrigation systems and other infrastructure.
CBB Shorts: Fishers Restoration; Polluted Ecosystems Recoverable; Nutrient Over-Enrichment In Estuaries; Reclamation Commissioner Confirmed; Proposed NPPC Budgets; Wildlife Grants
CBB Shorts: Wildlife Grants; Do Fish Feel Pain?; American Pika ESA Review; Radio Collaring Oregon Wolf; Wind Energy/Wildlife Guidelines; Award For John W. Keys Program
Newly announced U.S. Army Corps of Engineers economic “stimulus” projects will create jobs while also accelerating efforts in the Columbia River basin to boost populations of salmon and steelhead and other fish and wildlife.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that it will undertake 94 construction, energy efficiency, habitat restoration and other improvement projects in the coming months to create jobs.
Anybody who wants to launch a boat more than 10 feet long in Idaho waters will have to buy an Idaho Invasive Species Fund sticker.
The Department of Interior this week released the first ever comprehensive report on bird populations in the United States, showing that nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline due to habitat loss, invasive species, and other threats.
A parasitic isopod that scientists identified five years ago has all but decimated mud shrimp populations in coastal estuaries ranging from British Columbia to northern California — with the exception of a handful of locations in Oregon from Waldport to Tillamook.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has scheduled a “State of the Lake Meeting” to discuss the status of the Lake Pend Oreille fishery.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week adopted amendments to its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program — the nation’s largest regional effort to protect and enhance fish and wildlife.
A new study by researchers at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs has found that global climate change may lead to the retreat of some invasive plant species in the western United States, which could create unprecedented ecological restoration opportunities across millions of acres throughout America.
A newly minted permitting requirement for discharging ship effluent into U.S. waters has immediately been challenged in court by environmental groups that say it will not staunch a flood of invasive species that are threatening coastal environments, economic infrastructure and fish.
CBB Shorts: Indicators Measuring Council Program Success; California Native Fish Crisis; Electric Car Impacts On NW Power System; Puget Sound Sockeye Fishery Disaster Funds; Boise River Steelhead; Nominations Sought For Columbia Fishery Committees; New WDOE Director For Central Wash.; WDFW Sport Salmon Season Workshop
— Council Moves Forward On ‘Indicators’ Measuring Salmon Recovery Progress
A three-week netting project on Montana’s Swan Lake is complete, turning up more than 3,700 lake trout and giving biologists the ability to estimate the overall population of the invasive species in the lake.
“Every introduced species brings with it the potential to eat or out-compete native species, reduce water quality, and undo progress in watershed restoration made over the last few decades,” Paul Heimowitz writes in a new newsletter aimed at increasing vigilance about invasive aquatic plant and animal species in the Pacific Northwest.
Nearly 40 percent of North American freshwater fish species are imperiled, according to a new status report from the American Fisheries Society.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council Thursday has issued its draft 2008 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program for public review and comment through Oct. 30.
The governors of California, Oregon and Washington this week launched an action plan to address ocean and coastal management issues along the West Coast.
A vastly changed landscape has allowed non-native species to flourish to the point they now “represent major impediments to the restoration of native salmonids in the Columbia River Basin,” according to a recently completed Independent Scientific Advisory Board report.
Environmental organizations say they have won a battle this week in the effort slow the spread of invasive species in the Columbia River, Great Lakes and other ports of call.
A new report prepared for the Oregon Invasive Species Council concludes that the state needs to more strongly consider the economic consequences of addressing invasive species and not just focus attention on the biology and ecology.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week debated how deeply they should plunge into a pool of issues that would be addressed for the first time in its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week began discussing how it will handle a flood of recommendations for amending its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council this week began discussing how it will handle a flood of recommendations for amending its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff, and parties interested in commenting, are set to pore through an avalanche of materials submitted as recommended amendments to the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council and staff, and parties interested in commenting, are set to pore through an avalanche of materials submitted as recommended amendments to the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.
In early February, a truck hauling a boat covered with thousands of quagga mussels was decontaminated at the Washington-Oregon border.
That is yet another sign that the threat of a Northwest invasion is real.
In early February, a truck hauling a boat covered with thousands of quagga mussels was decontaminated at the Washington-Oregon border.
That is yet another sign that the threat of a Northwest invasion is real.
In a laboratory at Oregon State University, some giant water bugs are swimming happily in a small aquarium — the sole survivors of a population that had survived for thousands of years in a mountain stream near Tucson, Ariz., but during a severe 2004 drought went locally extinct.
In a laboratory at Oregon State University, some giant water bugs are swimming happily in a small aquarium — the sole survivors of a population that had survived for thousands of years in a mountain stream near Tucson, Ariz., but during a severe 2004 drought went locally extinct.
Scientists at Portland State University and the University of Washington have jointly completed the first targeted survey of nonnative aquatic plants and animals in the middle Columbia River — Bonneville Dam to Priest Rapids Dam — and the lower Snake River upstream to the Washington-Idaho border.
Scientists at Portland State University and the University of Washington have jointly completed the first targeted survey of nonnative aquatic plants and animals in the middle Columbia River — Bonneville Dam to Priest Rapids Dam — and the lower Snake River upstream to the Washington-Idaho border.
An ever-evolving “rapid response plan” previewed Thursday aims to marshal available forces quickly and efficiently to combat any identified Columbia River basin invasion of environment- and economy-changing zebra and quagga mussels.
An ever-evolving “rapid response plan” previewed Thursday aims to marshal available forces quickly and efficiently to combat any identified Columbia River basin invasion of environment- and economy-changing zebra and quagga mussels.
A burgeoning global population that includes steady Northwest growth is changing the air, water and landscape with ripple effects on fish and wildlife and their habitat.
Yet that changing landscape is little taken into account, in the Columbia River basin or elsewhere, as experts plot fish and wildlife support and recovery strategies.
Ten projects all in or near the Columbia River Estuary, were selected by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to receive the second round of grants from the Columbia River Estuarine Coastal Fund.
The once distant threat of zebra mussels, and their kin, quagga mussels, has leapt closer to the Columbia River basin, a fact that should not be ignored by the public, government officials, or anyone else concerned about the health of the Northwest’s environment and economy.
The discovery of invasive quagga mussels in Lake Mead on January 6, 2007 elevates the
threat these species pose to the Pacific Northwest’s natural resources and economy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said this week.
A 20-year survey of conservation science shows a disturbing disconnect between the world’s most pressing ecological issues and what researchers are actually studying, with some less serious problems getting the most attention while more critical concerns get largely ignored.
The sudden realization that infrastructure-damaging zebra mussels can literally leapfrog across the country could well reinvigorate Columbia River basin officials in their effort to build a defense against such an invasion.
Grant County PUD moved one step closer in the relicensing process for the Priest Rapids Project when commissioners adopted a resolution that establishes a Habitat Conservation Account and a No Net Impact Fund (NNI).
New reports from the lower Deschutes River and the Oregon coast show that
the tiny but highly invasive New Zealand mudsnail continues to increase its foothold in Oregon.
Researchers at Oregon State University have created a “benthic terrain modeler,” software that can be used with a geographic information system to provide a significant new way of describing the ocean sea floor and the fish and other marine species that probably live there.
Scientists have identified a prolific parasite that preys on mud shrimp – a native species of West Coast estuaries – and threatens to decimate mud shrimp populations, raising concern for the fragile, complex ecosystems of these coastal inlets.
Two University of Idaho professors participated in the nation’s most ambitious scientific effort to understand river restoration efforts that total nearly $1 billion in costs annually.
A new study published in the March 30th edition of the prestigious scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (a publication of the UK’s national academy of science) shows that the transfer of parasitic sea lice from salmon farms to wild salmon populations is much larger and more extensive than previously believed.
Swelling numbers of non-native American shad in the Columbia/Snake river mainstem are likely having an impact on salmon, other fish species and the ecosystem generally, but little is known about the magnitude, or even the direction, of that change, according to a U.S. Geological Survey researcher.
The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service has completed its status review of the greater sage-grouse throughout its range and determined that the species does not warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act at this time, Director Steve Williams announced today.
Scientists at Portland State University, the University of Washington and Oregon State University, with the support of the Ports of Portland and Astoria, have jointly completed the first-ever comprehensive survey of non-native aquatic plants and animals in the lower Columbia River.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists have recommended that
the Service not list the greater sage-grouse as a threatened or endangered
species under the Endangered Species Act across its range, Service Director
Steve Williams announced.
Large numbers of non-native American shad appear to be filling a food niche in the Lower Columbia River that allows aquatic predators to grow faster and, ultimately, take a bigger bite out of salmon populations that fish managers and others are trying to rebuild.
An advisory committee of Oregon marine scientists has reviewed a recent report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy at the request of Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, and strongly endorsed some of the key findings of that study – the oceans are in serious trouble, major changes are needed and current ocean policies do not reflect existing science and sound management principles.
Zebra mussels, invasive species that could harm Washington fish and wildlife and damage hydroelectric dams and public water systems, were discovered this month on a large boat being trailered cross-country by commercial vehicle, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reported this week.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton this week announced $304,000 in challenge cost-share grants to support eight cooperative conservation projects in Idaho, from eradicating invasive species to restoring riparian habitat along Kootenai River tributaries.
While the Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP) generally supports a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan proposed by the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership for the Lower Columbia River and Estuary, it rejected that part of the monitoring plan for habitat, saying it lacks detail and so is not “fundable.”
The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, in a preliminary report released today, called on Congress and President Bush to establish a new national ocean policy that balances use with sustainability, is based on sound science and educational excellence, and moves toward an ecosystem-based management approach.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is awarding 79 grants, totaling nearly $14 million, to help 60 federally recognized Indian tribes conserve and recover endangered, threatened and at-risk species and other wildlife on tribal lands.
Northwest tribes were awarded nearly $2 million in grants.
Oregon has received a letter grade of “B” for 2003 in its ongoing battle against invasive species that threaten the state as a new list of the 100 most dangerous species from the plant and animal kingdom has been developed.
Congress has agreed to spend $11 million in FY2004 to improve stream
passage on federal lands for migrating salmon and other fish in the
Pacific Northwest.
A draft plan that sets out an approach on how research in the lower Columbia River estuary and its plume should proceed is in the peer review process and is nearing its implementation date in February 2004.
A $17.7 million grant award announced last week will allow researchers
from Oregon State University and three other institutions to study coastal
ecosystems on an unprecedented scale.
The goal is to produce information that may eventually help answer questions
about the causes of declining salmon populations and collapsing fisheries,
zooplankton survival and potential biological impacts of global warming.
The grant is largest ever made to a university by the David and …
The ocean ecosystem where endangered salmon rear and grow to adults is in decline and much of the problem begins on land, according to a report released June 4 that took the Pew Oceans Commission over three years to complete.
While the report paints a dire picture of a polluted ocean off the coasts of the United States where wildlife is in decline, it also says that the reforms outlined by the report in ocean laws and policies could restore the health of the world’s oceans.
The Bush administration has approved the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s strategic plan for its fisheries program, and as a result, this week announced it will boost funding by 16 percent for national fish hatcheries, including those involved in Columbia Basin salmon recovery.
The zebra mussel, a small freshwater mollusk native to the Caspian and Black seas, has infested rivers in the eastern United States and now threatens to ride the Lewis and Clark Trail into western streams.
Federal agencies are urging all boaters to examine their craft for the prolific pests and report sightings immediately on a hotline.
This week, Congress passed a final interior spending bill with $26
million toward removal of two dams in Olympic National Park and at least
$14 million for Columbia Basin fish habitat and salmon enhancement in
the Northwest.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
