The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

In its meeting, December 2, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted to extend the transition period through 2017 to implement the Columbia River Fisheries Reform aimed at removing gillnetters from the lower Columbia River mainstem. The...

Major forest die-offs due to drought, heat and beetle infestations or deforestation could have consequences far beyond the local landscape. Wiping out an entire forest can have significant effects on global climate patterns and alter vegetation on th...

Lower Columbia River gillnetters told the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission Nov. 9 that fishery harvest reforms initiated in 2013 are not working economically, while salmon and steelhead anglers accused the commission of vacating its promise to get...

A lower river organization is just beginning to track and map where marine debris is located in the Columbia River estuary, but it needs help from people to identify where the debris is located and what kind of debris it is. The Lower Columbia...

From the Columbia Basin Bulletin As it reviews preliminary results of the 2016 commercial gillnetting and recreational angling season on the Columbia River at its meeting this week, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will also begin considering...

Juvenile chinook salmon density in shallow habitats downstream of Bonneville Dam is largely due to time of year, but density does differ across habitat types. The best habitats, according to a recent study, included those with higher percentages of...

NOAA is reporting that summer temperatures across the contiguous United States, June through August of this year, were the fifth highest on record, and a forecast for a La Niña weather pattern emerging has been downgraded to a “neutral” fore...

NOAA Fisheries and the Wild Fish Conservancy have stipulated that the agency will not disburse Mitchell Act funds to 10 Northwest hatcheries until the federal agency has completed its hatchery biological opinion and incidental take statements for the...

A new kind of “bank” NOAA Fisheries has approved in southwest Washington will use a novel approach to fund restoration and long-term protection of more than 300 acres of prime wetland and river habitat along the Coweeman River east of Kelso, pro...

Fall chinook salmon passage at Bonneville Dam is within expectations, but catch of the fish is lagging in the popular Buoy 10 fishery for recreational anglers. The finding prompted the two-state Columbia River Compact on August 25 to liberalize a...

The Wild Fish Conservancy is seeking an injunction and restraining order to block the continued use of Mitchell Act funding for salmonid hatchery operations in the lower Columbia River system. The conservancy contends Mitchell Act funds were...

NOAA Fisheries research indicates that after accounting for harvest, in some years as many as 45 percent of the salmon tagged in the estuary disappear before reaching Bonneville Dam, according to a presentation in mid-July to the Northwest Power and...

From The Columbia Basin Bulletin With the current 10-year federal court agreement – U.S. v. Oregon-- that guides Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead harvest set to expire next year, federal agencies have announced their intention to prepare a...

The Columbia Basin is possibly looking at a summer with progressively diminishing water supplies, because of similar conditions that developed last year across the basin. Mountain snowpacks were at or near average by mid-April in Washington, Oregon,...

2,394 birds shot this year Plaintiffs in a federal case in which they seek to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from continuing to shoot and oil double crested cormorant eggs in the lower Columbia River estuary called talk of “devastating i...

As Oregon and Washington canceled the second Bonneville Dam reservoir white sturgeon season and opened up more fishing for commercial gillnetters in the lower Columbia River select area fisheries, the run of sockeye salmon already has exceeded pre-se...

After snatching and eating almost 9,000 spring chinook salmon and steelhead through May 31, the number of pinnipeds lurking at Bonneville Dam has dropped to just one, a California sea lion. Steller sea lions were completely absent by the end of May....

The estimated size of the upriver spring chinook salmon run was reduced by nearly 5 percent last week by the U.S. v Oregon technical advisory committee (TAC). Still, the two-state Columbia River Compact, which met May 18, set additional recreational...

Columbia River basin salmon and steelhead, which are from the same species, but of differing stocks, enter the river’s estuary and the ocean at different times and at different sizes, a variation that contributes to the resilience of the fish. B...

The early phase of recreational spring chinook season on the lower Columbia River ended April 8, one day earlier than the Saturday deadline set in January by the two-state Columbia River Compact. The Compact agreed at its hearing April 7 to close...

The public is invited to comment on a new plan designed to align state fisheries and hatchery operations to support the recovery of wild salmon and steelhead populations in the lower Columbia River Basin. The Lower Columbia Conservation and...

The National Weather Service has warned for months that this year’s El Niño weather pattern will be among the strongest on record, with predictions for higher-than-normal precipitation and warmer-than-normal temperatures in the Pacific Northwest th...

The number of fall chinook passing Bonneville Dam continues to mount with nearly 1,000 more fish over the dam last week, increasing the record run to 954,376, or 212 percent of the 10-year average, according to NOAA Fisheries’ Paul Wagner at the N...

An outright ban on the common use of plastic "microbeads" from products that enter wastewater is the best way to protect water quality, wildlife, and resources used by people, a group of conservation scientists suggest in a new analysis. These...