Tag Archives: Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife

Battle over endangered fish has led Oregon to cull sea lions

While sea lion populations in the Pacific Northwest have soared in recent decades, salmon and steelhead numbers have not. And sea lions’ voracious appetite for salmon is the issue at hand. Many of the fish that sea lions eat are among 13 threatened and endangered runs protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. And groups of sea lions have taken to simply waiting at the Bonneville Dam, Willamette Falls and other pinch points where the fish gather as they struggle to make their way upriver to spawn. The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife estimates that sea lions eat up to 44% of the Columbia River spring Chinook run and 25% of the Willamette winter steelhead run each year. Video, >click to read< 09:11

Boats begin offloading crab

After a month-and-a-half delay, Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab season is underway along at least part of the coast, and crab boats have been busy, already hauling significant catches back to port to be offloaded at the docks. Tim Novotny is the executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, an industry-funded agency established by the Oregon Legislature in 1977 to serve as an advocate for the crabbing industry. When Novotny was asked for his initial thoughts on this year’s season, he said, “It’s been a ball of yarn,” adding that it’s pretty much the opposite of last year. Photos, >click to read< 07:57

Dungeness Crab Season opens Dec.16th From Cape Falcon to the California border!

Fishing vessels can start setting gear for the pre-soak period as soon as Dec. 13 and see their first pulls hit the docks on opening day. The season is normally scheduled to open Dec. 1, but is often delayed for quality assurance reasons and toxin testing. Testing this year showed a low meat yield in crab specimens, prompting the two-week delay to allow the crabs to fill with meat. Last year’s opening day was delayed until Dec. 31 for similar reasons. Domoic acid levels in crab across the coast were found to be safe for human consumption,,, >click to read< 12:55

Oregon: Crab season getting underway

Commercial Dungeness crab is Oregon’s most valuable fishery, and the economic benefit attributed to that fishery for just our area alone is huge. According to ODFW’s website, Dungeness crabs have been landed commercially on the West Coast of the United States since 1848, when San Francisco fishermen began the fishery. And, since the fishery was established, Oregon has consistently been one of the largest producers of Dungeness crab overall.  >click to read< 08:46

Second delay idles Newport crab fleet

The commercial Dungeness crab season has been pushed back — again — this time to at least Dec. 31 as fishery managers wait for pockets of light crab to come up to par. While some crab need more time to reach the meat content target of 25 percent, the wait has disappointed Newport fishermen who question extending delay when so much of the product is ready to be brought to the docks. Crab from Coos Bay north appear ready for harvest. Tests conducted Dec. 6-9 showed Newport crab at 26 percent meat content,,, Newport fisherman Corey Rock called the delay another example of a limited number of fishermen dictating the terms of the season to the larger fleet. >click to read<09:17

ODFW gives up on trapping Willamette sea lions

State officials have decided to give up on trapping Willamette River sea lions and transition operations to Bonneville, where the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife already has federal authorization to trap and kill sea lions. “It’s disheartening given what’s happening in the Willamette, but we don’t have enough staff to cover both locations so we’re moving to a place where we can be more effective,” said Bryan Wright, head of ODFW’s Marine Mammal Program, in a press release this week. In the absence of federal approval to kill California sea lions at Willamette Falls, ODFW attempted a stop-gap program of capturing and relocating sea lions this spring. >click to read<12:19

Decisions coming soon on Columbia salmon reforms

purse seineThe Washington and Oregon fish and wildlife commissions will decide in the next two months whether to implement fully in 2017 the biggest overhaul of Columbia River salmon policies in seven decades. Reforms adopted by both states in early 2013 allocated more chinook salmon to sportsmen in the main Columbia and restricted gillnetting to off-channel sites like Youngs Bay near Astoria. The reforms also called for commercial fishing that remained in the main Columbia to be done with live-capture methods — such as purse seines and beach seines — designed to harvest hatchery stocks and release wild fish. The reforms had a four-year transition period, which ends Dec. 31. Full implementation was to begin on Jan. 1. But, there have been issues during the 2013-2016 transition period. The effort to stock more chinook and coho in off-channel spots, and development of new off-channel places, has met with some success, but failures, too. Testing of beach and purse seines in the main Columbia have found much higher mortality rates of released fish than anticipated four years ago. Read the rest here 12:38

Lose the hatchery salmon, lose the cities – Margery Whitmer, Charleston, Oregon – Salmon Hatchery Petition

Oregon STEP Programs downsized  Coastal Multi-Species Conservation, and management has decided to downsize salmon hatchery programs in Oregon. continued