Explore the Robot River

Photo: Paul Hermans

The Colorado River — the most important water source for 40 million people in the West — is draining. For a century, seven states engineered ways to wring ever more water from the river, defying all natural limitations. But now, the very water laws and policies that shaped progress are rendering the West more vulnerable to drought and less fit to adapt to climate change. Discover how the nation helped turn the Colorado into an artificial system by engineering water projects that now exacerbate instead of solve the problem.

LINK (via: Pro Publica)

As Caviar Prices Skyrocket, Sturgeon Poachers Invade Pacific Northwest

Photo:Хрюша

There's no good reason for a live, 8-foot sturgeon to be tied by the tail and tethered to the shore of the Columbia River, in the Pacific Northwest.

But this is how poachers steal the giant fish: They keep the sturgeon alive and hidden underwater while they look for black-market buyers.

LINK (via:NCPR)

Chinook salmon swim 46 miles upstream in a day

Some adult spring and summer chinook detected at Bonneville Dam were detected at the Dalles Dam the very next day, a distance of 46 miles.

LINK (via: The Spokesman Review)

New rules, no-fishing zone for Biscayne National Park

Having Miami as a next-door neighbor has taken a severe toll on the 270-square-mile Biscayne National Park over the last three decades. Over-fishing has slammed stocks — more than 70 percent of 17 species are down — while anchors, traps lines and heavy boat traffic have crushed corals and raked seagrass meadows. More than 11,000 prop scars mar flats. Only six percent of its reefs remain.

The National Park Service will unveil a new general management plan intended to start reversing the decline with a suite of new rules for visitors that will, for the first time, include a controversial “no-fishing” marine reserve.

LINK (via: The Miami Herlad)

Needless to say the Keep America Fishing wing of the American Sportfishing Association is not happy about the proposed no fishing marine reserve.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article23137869.html#storylink=cpy

FWS Bull Trout Coordinator Explains New Recovery Plan

One of the authors of a new plan to save the threatened bull Trout in Montana says that’s not an easy task, nor is measuring what it will take to get the fish off of the endangered species list.

LINK (via: Montana Public Radio)

DNR delays decision on water rights for salmon vs. coal mine

A decision due this month by the state Department of Natural Resources on water rights for salmon streams or a coal mine at Upper Cook Inlet has been delayed until after an August hearing. At issue is competing claims filed in 2009 by the Chuitna Citizens Coalition and PacRim Coal of Delaware and Texas.  

The Coalition wants to protect spawning tributaries of the salmon-rich Chuitna River; PacRim wants to dewater the streams and dig Alaska’s largest coal mine. Based on PacRim data, the first phase alone would remove and dewater 20 square miles of salmon habitat, dig down 300 feet and discharge 7 million gallons of mine waste a day into the Chuitna River.

LINK (via: Alaska Fish Radio)