NOAA Fisheries scientists have panned a recent Fish Passage Center memo that attributed good sockeye returns to more spill and flow. ...more

With only a few days left to secure intervenor status in the latest round of BiOp litigation, several parties have filed motions requesting to take part, including the Columbia-Snake irrigators and the Salish-Kootenai tribes from Montana, who say they will support the BiOp. ...more

Harvest managers have closed the books last week on the summer chinook run and opened the Columbia River to recreational chinook fishing again on Aug. 1, hoping that this year's plentiful fall returns will allow the lower river Buoy 10 fishery to remain open through Labor Day. Last year, the fishery was open only 12 days. ...more

Harvest managers weren't making much of a fuss over their recently released estimate of last year's Snake fall chinook run, about 7,600 fish. It was included in a table in their July 22 fact sheet that announced their estimates of this year's expected returns, about 6,400 ESA-listed wild fall chinook, about 140 percent of the 10-year average. ...more

The National Marine Fisheries Service has agreed to complete consultations on the effects of 37 pesticides on West Coast salmon and steelhead as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of environmental and fishing groups last year to get the feds to comply to terms of an earlier ruling. The parties have agreed to a schedule for completion over the next four years with the first reviews to be finished by October. ...more

The North Pacific ocean has cooled off considerably over the past couple of years, but just how much? A new report by Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans said the Gulf of Alaska in January was the coldest in the past 35 years. ...more