Columbia Basin Bulletin - August 30, 2025

Chemical Treatment Used to Eliminate Invasive Species, Council Draft Report to Congress Notes Significant Challenges to Salmon, Puget Sounds Project Shows Importance of Stable Funding For Monitoring Salmon Survival... and more

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Columbia Basin Bulletin
August 30, 2025

A copper-based chemical treatment to rid a portion of the Snake River of invasive quagga mussels – the first to be found in any Columbia Basin stream – destroyed up to 90 percent of water-based macroinvertebrates (bugs), nearly all gastropods (snails and slugs) and most white sturgeon residing near the area where the poison was applied, according to a recent study.

The Colville Tribes and the Tribes’ project partners, the Spokane Tribe and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, have been reintroducing Chinook salmon to the waters upstream of Grand Coulee Dam since 2017. On July 8th, a juvenile Chinook salmon was caught and photographed in the Kettle River, just downstream from Cascade Falls in British Columbia. It’s the first report of a Chinook in the Kettle River since the reintroduction began.

With what may have been the last round of federal funding support, a research team gathered offshore monitoring data throughout Puget Sound once more this summer.

Following a “thorough review of the best available scientific and commercial information,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it has determined that listing the Northern California-Southern Oregon distinct population segment of fisher under the Endangered Species Act is not warranted.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins this week announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken the next step in the rulemaking process for rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule by opening a public comment period.

This summer, Idaho Fish and Game biologists are testing whether trail cameras can help estimate the number of black bears in one of the state’s most popular bear hunting areas, Unit 32A.

Idaho’s wolves will remain under state authority despite a judge’s recent decision that calls for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider a previous determination that relisting wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming under the Endangered Species Act was not warranted.

So-called “100-year weather events” now seem almost commonplace as floods, storms and fires continue to set new standards for largest, strongest and most destructive. But to categorize weather as a true 100-year event, there must be just a 1% chance of it occurring in any given year. The trouble is that researchers don’t always know whether the weather aligns with the current climate or defies the odds.

A federal district court in Missoula has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that gray wolves in the western U.S. do not warrant federal protections. The ruling means that the Service’s finding that gray wolves in the West do not qualify for listing is vacated and sent back to the agency for a new decision, consistent with the ESA and best available science.

A federal judge in Oregon last week confirmed the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s legal duty to consider preventative measures — rather than a “spray first, ask questions later” approach — in its program allowing insecticide spraying to kill native grasshoppers and crickets on millions of acres in 17 western states.

A collaborative research and outreach effort led by Oregon State University to protect whales and sustain Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab fishery has been recognized as one of four regional winners of the 2025 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award.