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A new University of Washington and NOAA Fisheries study found that sea lions have the largest negative effect on early-arriving endangered chinook salmon in the lower Columbia River.

Confronted with trapping and euthanizing salmon-eating sea lions that are sometimes twice the size of California sea lions, states and tribes are upgrading equipment and procedures to begin capturing the larger Steller sea lions in the Bonneville Dam tailrace and at Willamette Falls, and eventually in Columbia River tributaries.

Scientists at the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center have developed an unusually rich picture of who is eating whom off the Northeastern United States.

Sea lion removal at Bonneville Dam and Willamette Falls will restart in October, but with a twist that allows tribes and states to capture and euthanize far more sea lions, including both California and Steller sea lions, and to target sea lions in the lower Willamette River and from the I-205 bridge on the Columbia River upstream to McNary Dam, as well as the river’s tributaries.

Likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and recent smokey skies, the number of anglers this year participating in the Northern Pikeminnow Sport Reward Program is down 28 percent from this time last year. Currently, the 2020 harvest of northern pikeminnow on the Columbia and Snake rivers is on track to be the lowest on record.

The fish-eating sea birds on East Sand Island in the Columbia River estuary have been the target of management actions to reduce the number of double-crested cormorants and Caspian terns since the middle of the last decade.

Last month, the Columbia Basin Bulletin published an article about the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement related to management of double-crested cormorants.