All parties, both plaintiffs and defendants, along with the State of Alaska, have unsuccessfully challenged the results of a recent lower federal court decision that vacated a part of NOAA Fisheries’ 2019 biological opinion governing Southeast Alaska’s summer and winter commercial troll fishing for Chinook salmon. The litigation now moves to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The breeding season for avian predators, March–August, overlaps with the peak out-migration of juvenile salmon and steelhead, April -- August, according to a recent survey of literature that looked specifically at peer-reviewed studies of Caspian terns, double-crested cormorants and gulls that prey on salmonids in the Columbia River basin.
Record average temperatures across the Columbia River basin, with little to no rain in the western and northern areas of the basin in May, are leaving the region dry with a smaller snowpack than average and declining water supply at the beginning of June.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) this week joined U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad to announce an $83 million commitment to rebuild the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, $240 million for Northwest salmon and steelhead hatchery infrastructure, and $60 million for Mitchell Act hatcheries.
An Oregon State University researcher has been awarded a three-year, $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to lead a study about the movement of fish stocks due to changing climate conditions and the potential geopolitical tensions that could result from that shift.
In early 2014, a great anomaly descended upon the seas: A patch of warm water that manifested in the Gulf of Alaska. Scientists called it “The Blob.”
As the ocean warms, marine fish are on the move—beyond their traditional habitats and across international boundaries. Understanding these patterns of movement is essential to predicting change and managing climate-resilient fisheries.
