Columbia Basin Bulletin - August 9, 2024

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Columbia Basin Bulletin
August 09, 2024

The Bureau of Reclamation last week announced four projects totaling more than $1 million to be awarded as part of two Klamath Basin Salmon Restoration grant programs.

Idaho Fish and Game reported last week a mortality event that resulted in about 33,000 young Chinook dying at the McCall Fish Hatchery in late July.

The popular Lower Deschutes River in central Oregon will remain open for steelhead fishing under permanent regulations.

Last week crews broke through the cofferdam at the JC Boyle Dam site, returning the Klamath River to its historic path and restoring fish passage in that reach of the river.

The number of wild steelhead returning to the Deschutes River this year remains low, although the run is still in progress, while this year’s wild spring Chinook salmon run is in critical condition, as it has been for the past few years

On July 11, 2024, Canada and the U.S. reached a milestone in the process of modernizing the Columbia River Treaty – an agreement-in-principle (AIP) that sets the stage for an improved treaty that supports people and ecosystems on both sides of the border.

USFWS Petitioned To List Under ESA Freshwater Snail Found Only In Oregon’s Lower Deschutes River

The Center for Biological Diversity this week petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the banded juga — an imperiled freshwater snail in Oregon’s Deschutes River — under the Endangered Species Act.

Idaho Fish and Game researchers have developed a new genetics-based method of estimating the state’s wolf population. The method uses genetic and age information taken from every harvested wolf checked by Fish and Game.

It’s a phenomenal year for sockeye salmon in Central Washington, with record numbers of fish making their way upriver. Through July 31, an astounding 165,071 sockeye have been counted at Tumwater Dam on the Wenatchee River.

The removal of four dams on the Klamath River will reopen more habitat to Pacific salmon than all previous dam removals in the West combined. Now it will have a monitoring program to match—designed by salmon scientists to track when and how many fish of different species return and where they go.

The Department of Commerce and NOAA have announced more than $105 million in recommended funding for 14 new and continuing salmon recovery projects and programs.