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- Columbia Basin Bulletin - February 26, 2025
Columbia Basin Bulletin - February 26, 2025
Pink Salmon Study, Columbia River Sockeye Returns, Columbia River Fishing Dates... and more
Columbia Basin Bulletin
February 26, 2025
Since the 1990s, the decline in numbers of southern resident killer whales in Puget Sound has followed a biennial pattern; births decline and deaths rise in even-numbered years. That biennial pattern matches the decline of Chinook salmon spawner abundance while abundance of pink salmon in the North Pacific and in Puget Sound rivers has risen, according to a study published this month.
Forecasted returns of salmon and steelhead to the Columbia River this year are showing small changes in run size from the returns of 2024, with the exceptions of sockeye salmon with a run size predicted to drop by more than 50 percent of 2024’s record run and wild winter steelhead forecasted to drop 31 percent, according to an annual staff report by Oregon, Washington and Tribal fish and wildlife agencies.
At a joint Columbia River Compact hearing this week (Feb. 20), Oregon and Washington fisheries managers set the 2025 early season recreational harvest dates for spring Chinook salmon in the mainstem Columbia River. Angling downstream of Bonneville Dam will begin March 1 and it will begin April 1 upstream of the dam to the Oregon/Washington border.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still determining “how to proceed” in implementing actions directed by the 2024 Water Resources Development Act and a new jeopardy biological opinion for its 13 Willamette River projects completed by NOAA Fisheries Dec. 26. The Corps says that it still needs funds from Congress that it could get through the annual federal budget that is working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, but that the efforts are also complicated by the change in administration at the federal government. “We are working with our headquarters (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers …”
Local and national conservation groups have sued the U.S. Forest Service to challenge its approval of the Stibnite Gold Project, an open-pit cyanide leach gold mine in Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains. The groups say the mine would jeopardize public health and clean water, harm threatened plants and animals, and permanently scar thousands of acres of public land in the headwaters of the South Fork Salmon River.
U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Oregon Democrats, said this week they are demanding President Trump answer questions about his administration’s deep job cuts at the Bonneville Power Administration and “how those reckless and financially ludicrous decisions add up to undermine the dependability of the electric grid for Oregon and the entire Pacific Northwest.”
In a collaborative effort to increase the sustainability of California's salmon populations, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has partnered with the Department of Water Resources, as well as ocean and inland fishing groups to continue a pilot project aimed at diversifying salmon hatchery release strategies.
Higher power purchase expenses due to low stream flows and dry winter weather have resulted in the Bonneville Power Administration forecasting agency net revenues of negative $44 million, $114 million below the agency target of $70 million.
The blue whale is the largest animal on the planet. It consumes enormous quantities of tiny, shrimp-like animals known as krill to support a body of up to 100 feet (30 meters) long. Blue whales and other baleen whales, which filter seawater through their mouths to feed on small marine life, once teemed in Earth’s oceans. Then over the past century they were hunted almost to extinction for their energy-dense blubber.
As part of statewide efforts to help Californians and wildlife recover from the Southern California fires, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and its partners last month rescued 271 endangered Southern California steelhead trout from Topanga Creek, the last known population of this species in the Santa Monica Mountains.
New research from wildlife biologists shows that poachers play a bigger role in the deaths of eagles, hawks, and other birds of prey in the West than previously thought.
Two recent University of Montana studies are demystifying how increasing wildfires and hotter annual temperatures limit forest regeneration in the Western U.S., revealing that our capacity to plant trees can’t keep pace with reforestation needs.
As insect populations decrease worldwide — in what some have called an “insect apocalypse” — biologists seek to understand how the six-legged creatures are responding to a warming world and to predict the long-term winners and losers.
Fishery managers with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have scheduled opportunities for the public to provide input in 2025-2026 state-managed salmon seasons, beginning with a hybrid statewide forecast meeting on Friday, Feb. 28 in Olympia.