If someone had told me a year ago, when I was planning to launch the new subscription-based Columbia Basin Bulletin, that in nine months the nation would be dealing with a pandemic striking a hard blow to the economy, I might have questioned the wisdom of the enterprise.
After a 20-year wait and a lawsuit that was finally decided in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a study to determine temperature limits in the Columbia and Snake rivers for the protection of salmon and steelhead was released this week by the Environmental Protection Agency.
After a drop in the spring chinook salmon forecast and dire predictions that some hatcheries won’t make broodstock quotas this year, the two-state Columbia River Compact this week shut down mainstem Columbia River fisheries.
An anticipated poor summer run of chinook salmon means no summer chinook fishing this year on the Columbia River mainstem, according to Oregon and Washington. The summer season will be limited to only sockeye and steelhead retention.
A recent study found that the stray rates of returning natural origin salmon and steelhead in the upper Columbia River basin differ by river basin, sub-basin and by stream, with the larger the area the lower the straying percentage.
Even with missing information, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week approved putting the draft Part I of the 2020 “Fish and Wildlife Addendum” to the 2004 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program out for public comment. The addendum addresses program goals, objectives and measurements of progress.
Increased frequency and severity of droughts threatens California’s endangered salmon population–but pools that serve as drought refuges could make the difference between life and death for these vulnerable fish, according to a study by researchers from UC Berkeley and California Sea Grant, a partnership between NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.
