Hatcheries now produce most Pacific Northwest salmon. We look at hatchery effects on natural salmon populations. We determine the effectiveness of hatcheries in rescuing, rebuilding, and maintaining genetic diversity in some of the nation’s most depleted salmon stocks, including the Redfish Lake sockeye salmon.

We apply behavioral and ecological assessments to understand how hatcheries:

Alter salmon development.
Contribute to domestication selection and fitness loss.
Influence ecological interactions with wild salmon during freshwater and marine migrations and on the spawning grounds.
Affect ESA recovery efforts…

Read more at NOAA.org

A new report spells out exactly how much Oregon’s kelp forests have dwindled over the past decade or so — and the picture is bleak.

According to a status report released by the Oregon Kelp Alliance in November, nearly 900 acres of bull kelp forest has essentially disappeared off the Oregon Coast since 2010. Only around one-third of Oregon’s kelp forests remain — important oases facing ongoing threats and stressors in a changing ocean.

For the past two years, the Oregon Kelp Alliance has been developing a tool kit to aid in the recovery of the kelp forests, piloting various approaches and techniques without a clear sense of what could work for the Oregon Coast…

Read more at OPB.org

SALEM, Ore.—The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted 2025 recreational and commercial groundfish regulations at their meeting today in Salem that continue a five-fish recreational bag limit during the popular summer months.

Nearshore groundfish species (approximately a dozen species of rockfish, cabezon, greenlings, and lingcod) are subject to joint state and federal management. The recent (2023) stock assessment for both black rockfish and canary rockfish resulted in a reduced quota for Oregon’s fisheries.  

While the year will start with a four-fish daily marine bag limit, the bag limit increases to five fish starting July 1 (with a one-fish sub-bag limit of canary rockfish all year). ODFW heard support for this approach during meetings earlier in the year when it asked for public feedback on how to accommodate the reduced quotas. This approach is expected to provide a stable fishery throughout the year, with a low risk that the bag limit will need to be further reduced in-season. The increased bag limit during the popular summer months will provide the most opportunity as many visitors come to the Oregon coast to vacation and fish during summer and ocean conditions are also much better. The commercial nearshore fishery’s bi-monthly trip limits are also reduced for 2025.

ODFW is seeking to collect more data on black rockfish to increase confidence in survey data and hopefully increase the quota; the 2025 reduction in quota would have been larger but for ODFW assessment data…

Read more at ODFW

Kelp forests have declined across the world and governments, organizations and businesses are mounting ambitious efforts to protect and restore 9 million acres of kelp globally by 2040.

Still, the dilemma remains: is kelp restoration even feasible, given the billions of purple urchins feasting on the seaweed and eradicating it from the ocean?

“That is the question that keeps me up at night,” said Tristin McHugh, the Nature Conservancy kelp project director. “But what’s the alternative? Do we let this ecosystem lapse into something that can be irreparable? I’ve seen the success stories from around the world. When a culture acknowledges that an ecosystem is worth saving, they will do it. This might be our chance.”

Read more at oregonlive.com

The recovery of Pacific bluefin tuna has achieved a major milestone—the species exceeded international targets a decade ahead of schedule. The rebuilding of Pacific bluefin tuna reflects a fisheries management success. International organizations cooperated across the Pacific to reverse decades of overfishing for the prized species.

The International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-Like Species in the North Pacific Ocean (ISC), including NOAA Fisheries researchers, provided scientific expertise to inform conservation measures. The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) and Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) adopted these measures.

The ISC recently finalized the new stock assessment at the annual meeting in Victoria, Canada. The assessment confirmed that the stock reached the second rebuilding target in 2021. If the current management measures persist, the population growth is expected to continue growing. 

Read more at noaa.gov

A recent report out of Oregon State University paints a picture of how ocean oxygen levels have decreased in the Pacific Northwest over the years.

The report found near-bottom levels of dissolved oxygen in the waters off of Washington, Oregon and Northern California in 2021. JPR’s Roman Battaglia talked to Jack Barth, professor of oceanography at OSU, about his report and what these low oxygen levels mean for marine life.

Roman Battaglia: One thing I noticed in this study was that the levels seem pretty different in different parts of the coast. For example, in northern California and the southern Oregon coast, the oxygen levels seem much higher than they are in southern Washington and the northern Oregon coast. But why is there so much variability?

Jack Barth: That was the second big outcome of the paper, is that there really are regional differences. And importantly, we can explain them by oceanographic processes. So that higher oxygen level off southern Oregon, that’s because the continental shelf is relatively narrow. So it can flush water on and off pretty effectively from the deep ocean and flush out that low oxygen water so it stays high. And it looks like a pretty good area for fisheries. As you get into the wider continental shelves off central Oregon and Washington, the water sticks around longer; it doesn’t get flushed off as effectively. So that keeps those low oxygen waters near the bottom on those wider shelves.

Battaglia: Have we determined the cause of why these low oxygen levels are happening, or why the oxygen levels are getting lower? It seems like climate change is playing a factor in that?

Read more on opb.org