Fisheries: Hatchery Salmon Posing Problems For Wild Stocks - A special issue in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes looks at how hatcheries are affecting wild fish populations. One of the major findings: hatchery fish may be outcompeting wild fish for food in the Bering Sea.

Fisheries: Balancing fish and farms on a Washington estuary - Unlike in other parts of the Skagit River Delta, where conservationists have squabbled with farmers over salmon restoration, the work at Fisher Slough has tried to benefit both groups. By helping farmers reduce flood risk, among other things, the project has won their grudging support, and thus serves as a model for other projects seeking to resolve conservation vs. agriculture stalemates.

Fisheries: Reaction to Redden's pro-breach comments - Supporters of the four lower Snake River Dams continued to express disappointment today over retired judge James Redden's public support for dam breaching. U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and Terry Flores, executive director of the Portland based industry group Northwest RiverPartners said his remarks reveals he was biased against their side in the long running salmon versus dams court case.

Fisheries: Lawmakers expand Puyallup salmon research center - Washington lawmakers have provided $800,000 to expand Washington State University’s Salmon Toxicology Lab to look at stormwater and pollution effects on other critical species. The primary goal of the WSU expansion is to house researchers, fisheries, and private businesses collaborating, testing and solving critical questions for Washington’s multibillion dollar commercial and tribal fishing and shellfish industry.

Fisheries: Port Angeles Harbor damage council schedules first meeting - A council tasked with creating a habitat restoration plan for facilities on Port Angeles Harbor, including the Rayonier pulp mill site — and work with those held responsible for the damage — will conduct its first meeting Monday, April 23.

Fisheries: Washington, tribes agree to salmon fishing seasons for 2012 - The 2012 salmon fishing seasons, developed by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and treaty tribes, were finalized today during the Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Seattle. The package sets regulations for salmon fisheries in Puget Sound, Washington’s ocean and coastal areas and the Columbia River.

Fisheries: Billy Frank, Jr.. - Polluted stormwater runoff barrier to salmon recovery and Puget Sound cleanup - Scientists have seen adult coho salmon dying within 24 hours of returning to some polluted urban streams in Western Washington. In some cases, 60 to 90 percent of the coho are dying before they can spawn. What’s killing the fish? It’s a poison soup of brake pad dust, oil, gasoline and other pollutants that are washed by rain or melting snow from yards, sidewalks, parking lots and roads right into our streams and Puget Sound.

Fisheries: First Nations don't want a chinook fight - First Nations from Vancouver Island and around the Fraser River want to meet with sports fishers to decide how best to protect the diminishing stocks of Fraser River-bound chinook salmon. "We don't want to fight with them, we want to sit down and see how we can work together for conservation," said Ernie Crey, fisheries adviser to the Sto:lo Tribal Council.

Fisheries: Sea Lion Removal Authorised to Protect Salmon - NOAA's Fisheries Service said that it is authorising Idaho, Oregon and Washington to permanently remove the specific California sea lions eating the imperiled salmon and steelhead that congregate below Bonneville Dam as they head up the Columbia River to spawn.

Fisheries: Ceremonial Fisheries Culturally Important To NW Tribes - Columbia River Indian tribes are keeping their ancient traditions alive in the coming weeks with ceremonies to open their spring fisheries. Predictions of strong salmon runs are giving the tribes extra reason to celebrate.

Fisheries: Film examines challenges that face Puget Sound - A showing of “Sound and Vision,” a documentary film about efforts to protect and clean up Puget Sound, will be show March 12 in Tacoma. Told in eight parts, the film transitions to what is happening in the Puget Sound region and what is being done to protect the Sound. The benefits of river and estuary restoration is featured in the seventh portion of the film and features interviews with Jean Takekawa, manager of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, and Nisqually tribal member Billy Frank Jr.

Fisheries: Fall chinook redds on rise in Snake River, and tributaries between Lower Granite and Hells Canyon dams - Here is a story from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission that discusses an increased numbers of Snake River fall chinook redds: Continued high numbers of Snake River fall chinook redds throughout the Snake and Clearwater river basins demonstrate the success of tribal restoration projects.

Fisheries: The Klamath dams are a massive investment - PacifiCorp operates seven dams on the Klamath River system. The six hydroelectric dams have a generating capacity of 169 megawatts. Replacing the Klamath River dams' renewable energy won't be difficult, PacifiCorp officials say. The company has developed nearly 1,600 megawatts of new wind energy in the past five years.

Fisheries: Research tracking changes - The Klamath River commonly is referred to in a cultural sense by tribes. But they're talking science, too. Tribes have invested in fisheries research to track changes.

Fisheries: ‘Our lives depend on the river’ - When tribal members and leaders up and down the Klamath River talk about cultural changes and issues, almost all of it circles around to the river. The Klamath River system is many things to many people. To the tribes, the water is everything.

Fisheries: Water quality, low flows stop ceremonies, dances - Even though each tribe has its own ceremonies, most involve either getting into or floating down the waterways. Poor water quality and low flows make that more and more difficult.

Fisheries: ‘The river is too hot, the fish are too soft’ - Before she was born, Mavis McCovey was made known to the Karuk people in a vision sent to the tribe's medicine woman. McCovey has been around long enough to remember a time when it was safe to swim in the Klamath River, before mining, logging, farming and ranching practices made the water too unhealthy. "In the beginning of time we believed that God made Ishi-pishi Falls for us so we could find those fish forever," McCovey said. "But the river is too hot and the fish are too soft. I don't eat fish from those falls anymore."

Fisheries: Origin sisters remain to guide salmon home - The origin story for the Yurok tribe says its traditional ancestral lands were prepared specifically for the Yurok people. The spirit people knew once the area was ready for the Yuroks they had to leave, said Yurok tribal elder Robert McConnell, 62. But they didn't want to. As Klamath River water quality continues to degrade, McConnell wonders how the sister rocks feel calling the salmon home to a place where dams and over-fishing mean they may not ever make it to their spawning grounds.

Fisheries: Voices along the river: Kathleen Sloan, director of the Yurok Tribe Environmental Program - "You can't just take out the dams, walk away and say, ‘Good luck, ecosystem.' We engineered the problem, and I believe we can engineer the solution. Down here, we are basically the tailpipe of the system. When there are big algae blooms upriver, we get the remnants down here. We have more fine silts coming down and salmon need cold, clear water with lots of gravel."

Fisheries: Dam construction degraded river water quality, hurt food sources - Native American cultures are traditionally subsistence-based, which means they eat what grows locally and is in season. In the Southern Oregon and Northern California areas, this means American Indians mostly lived off deer and elk meat, salmon, steelhead, acorns, wild turnips, and berries, such as huckleberries and wild strawberries. Dam construction and degraded water quality mean Indians are unable to continue eating traditional foods. The fish have stopped running because of the dams and poor forest management has negatively affected the animal population and the growth of berries, acorns and other traditional foods.

Fisheries: Chinook salmon could be a health hazard - Orcas are being poisoned by their own prized prey, the chinook salmon, scientists say. Natives eat a lot of this fish too. Are they getting contaminated as well? Ernie Crey, a senior policy adviser to the Sto:lo Tribal Council, wants to know.

Fisheries: Being Frank: We need to win the battle for salmon recovery - We are losing the battle for salmon recovery in Western Washington because salmon habitat is being destroyed faster than it can be restored. Despite massive cuts in harvest, careful use of hatcheries and a huge financial investment in restoration during the past four decades, salmon continue to decline along with their habitat.

Fisheries: Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs pushes for moratorium on chinook salmon fisheries - In a recent letter to federal fisheries and oceans minister Keith Ashfield, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs called for a stop to all nonaboriginal fisheries on early-spring chinook bound for and in the Fraser River. The Native leaders' group also told Ashfield that it will "encourage" all First Nations to cease fishing this largest of the Pacific salmon species "to mirror this moratorium". According to the letter, of which a copy was obtained by the Straight, these measures will help in the recovery of chinook stocks that have been in decline.

Fisheries: Tribes offer states advice in managing salmon fisheries - It long was practice by the Columbia River treaty tribes to avoid telling Washington and Oregon — at least in public — how to manage salmon fishing for non-Indians. About five years ago, that started changing, especially regarding spring chinook destined for the upper Columbia and Snake rivers. Tribal fishermen get exasperated watching a huge sport fleet in the metropolitan area catch hundreds of spring chinook while daily counts at Bonneville Dam remain in single digits. At last week's Columbia River Compact meeting in Portland, the tribes continued their trend of giving Washington and Oregon advice how to manage non-Indian fishing in the lower river.

Fisheries: Endangered Species Act review needs all sides - U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings was vilified by environmental bloggers last month when he announced plans to revisit the Endangered Species Act...if the act is gutted, as environmentalists fear, they better take a hard look in the mirror before assigning blame. We've seen environmental lawyers wield the ESA like a bludgeon to smash hard-won compromises that would clearly benefit endangered Northwest salmon runs. As a result, after 20 years of trying to produce a salmon management plan -- called an Biological Opinion, or BiOp, for the Columbia River system -- the federal government remains stalled. The latest agreement, which would have provided nearly a $1 billion over a decade to improve fish and lamprey survival in the basin, looked momentarily like it might actually shift the battle to save salmon from the courtroom to the river. The proposal was supported by the Umatilla, Yakama, Warm Springs and Colville Indian tribes, the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bonneville Power Administration, the Bureau of Reclamation and the states of Montana, Idaho and Washington. Of course, the environmental wing that supports dam removal responded to the agreement with a federal lawsuit.

Fisheries: Being Frank: Salmon are for everyone - I'm starting to wonder if the state's budget problems mean it will no longer be able to co-manage natural resources with the treaty tribes. Even President Obama has said recently that the state's budget crisis is a "huge problem." Like most of state government, natural resources agencies are likely going to see a huge hit during this upcoming legislative session as the state seeks to fill its $2 billion budget gap. The governor has wisely proposed a one-time transfer of $1.5 million from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife's wildlife fund to protect salmon production at several hatcheries. We hope the Legislature will support her plan. The state's budget problems, combined with the ongoing loss of salmon habitat and the state's inability to stop that trend, put tribal cultures and treaty-reserved rights at risk. The treaty tribes are committed to co-management. We know that difficult decisions must be made during these tough economic times, but they should not come at the further expense of tribal cultures and treaty rights or the fish production that we all, both Indian and non-Indian, rely on.

Fisheries: Winter fishery on B.C. coast may put inshore herring stocks at risk, scientists say - The winter herring fishery underway in the Strait of Georgia has alarmed some conservationists, with some scientists worrying that local resident herring populations could be damaged. First nations up and down the coast are convinced that past mismanagement of the herring fishery has resulted in the extinction of local resident stocks that used to support their ancient marine economy. Delegates to last summer’s Herring School conference hosted by Simon Fraser University said that aboriginal herring and roe fisheries in Sliammon and near Skidegate in Haida Gwaii were devastated by non-aboriginal commercial overfishing in the 1960s and have never recovered.

Fisheries: Tribes propose plan to preserve Pacific lamphrey - The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission’s four member tribes – the Umatilla, Warm Springs, Yakama and Nez Perce – adopted a comprehensive restoration plan for Pacific lamphrey.

Fisheries: Study of Hood River steelhead finds natural selection in hatcheries causes rapid productivity declines in the wild - Genetic adaptation of hatchery steelhead starts hurting spawning success within just one generation, according to a study of Hood River fish that could lead to pinning down the causes of hatchery domestication.

Fisheries: Strong run of chinook predicted for spring - The 2012 forecast calls for 36,400 5-year-old chinook, which are larger and tend to return a bit earlier, and 277,400 4-year-olds. Four hundred 6-year-olds also are predicted.

Fisheries: Gov. Gregoire announces new initiative to create jobs, restore Puget Sound - "Shellfish have always been an important part of tribal culture here in Western Washington," said Billy Frank, Jr, chairman, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. "This initiative will help protect and restore shellfish by increasing accountability for activities that pollute shellfish beds and threaten our treaty rights. As co-managers, the treaty Indian tribes stand ready to work with our state, federal, and local partners, the shellfish industry and others to accomplish the goals of this initiative."

Fisheries: U.S. Judge Redden To Step Down from Long-running Columbia Salmon Case

Fisheries: First Nation leaders say they are closing B.C. borders to Gateway pipeline

Fisheries: Canada kept detection of salmon virus secret

Fisheries: Oregon dam removal may cost California

Fisheries: Alliance forms to end Klamath water war

Fisheries: Rising streams welcome surge in salmon runs

Fisheries: Fear but little fact in Resighini Klamath Settlement opposition

Fisheries: Comment period for Klamath dams removal environmental report extended to Dec. 30

Fisheries: Feds announce salmon plan

Fisheries: Battle lines drawn over Klamath bill

Fisheries: Klamath Basin water bill is landmark, but will it pass Congress?

Fisheries: Condit Dam decommissioning takes the next step

Fisheries: Salish Sea: The Breakdown (Day 1)

Fisheries: Salish Sea: The Breakdown (Day 2)

Deadly Salmon Disease Found on West Coast

The White Salmon runs wild

Crews breach Condit Dam in Washington

Condit Dam to be demolished Wednesday

Condit Dam to be breached Wednesday

Condit Dam next to tumble in restoration plan