An important study trying to determine the biological value of barging Snake River fall chinook will likely be derailed this year because too few fish were captured last year to provide broodstock for a new crop of study fish. ...more

Columbia Basin harvest managers estimate this year's upriver bright run heading for the Hanford Reach will be about 77 percent of the 10-year average, or about 182,000 chinook (counted at river mouth). That's about 48,000 fewer fish than returned last year, which came in about 10 percent shy of their wintertime prediction last year. ...more

Bonneville Power Administration customers and the state of Montana have responded to BiOp judge James Redden, after some plaintiff groups said that fish would be better off if dissolved gas standards in the Columbia and Snake rivers were relaxed. ...more

The four lower Columbia Basin tribes say their views aren't getting much respect in the ongoing BiOp remand process, according to their comments included with the latest remand update released Feb. 2 by federal agencies. ...more

A new report from the Pacific Fishery Management Council on the economic impacts of last year's West Coast salmon season shows just how devastating the harvest cutbacks were to fishermen's pocketbooks. The harvest reductions were put in place to allow more Klamath River chinook to spawn. ...more

Washington's Department of Ecology has released a programmatic EIS on its new program for breaking the log jam over new water usage from the Columbia River that has been stalled for years over questions of ESA fish protection and future withdrawals. ...more