Right now, the EPA and NOAA consider fish farms to have essentially no negative effect on wild fish.

Right now, the EPA and NOAA are smoking crack.....

The Wild Fish Conservancy has sent a 60-day Notice of Intent to sue the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for violations of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) associated with the agencies’ evaluation of the harmful effects to threatened salmonids from commercial salmon farming in Puget Sound.

LINK (via:King 5)

California water districts sue U.S. over releases to help Klamath River salmon

Two agricultural water providers in the Central Valley of California are asking a federal judge to stop releases of extra water intended to help salmon in the Klamath Basin survive the drought.

LINK (via:Oregon Live)

This is what happened in 2002 when Klamath water was diverted to agricultural interests for political gain.

The Klamath Basin was once the third most productive river system for salmon on the west coast. It supported combined run sizes estimated between 660,000 to 1.1 million adult fish per year. These included spring-run chinook, fall-run chinook, coho, pink, and chum salmon, and winter and summer steelhead. Only the Columbia and the California Central Valley river systems produced more salmon.

Dead salmon, climate change and Northwest dams

Photo: Peteforsyth

Federal dam operators are breaking the law by allowing the Columbia River to reach lethally hot temperatures for salmon. Scientists report that 400,000 sockeye, 80 percent of the run, are dead or dying. Fishermen and conservation groups are calling on the Obama Administration to take action to stop the extreme river heat.

LINK (via: Columbia Riverkeeper)

Why has the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency in charge of salmon and climate science, refused since 2008 to analyze how climate change is affecting Columbia River Basin salmon, and how to reduce or buffer those effects? And why does Washington state support this inaction?

LINK (via: The Seattle Times)

Wild Fish Don’t Ride in Trucks

In this Sacramento Bee op-ed, Yvon Chouinard and Matt Stoecker explain why a proposed trap and haul program is the wrong way to save salmon on California's Yuba River.

LINK (via: The Cleanest Line)

Local conservationists also oppose the plan to truck salmon. 

“It’s like everyone brought a friend”

High Country News with a very thorough examination of the current sea lion problem on the Columbia.

These days, more than 300,000 California sea lions roam U.s. Waters.This population is probably at a higher abundance level now than at any time in the last 10 to 12,000 years,” says Bob DeLong, a marine mammal biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

LINK (via:HCN)

The BearCam is Back

The salmon are running in Alaska’s Katami National Park which means the local brown bears are poking around there to eat them which means the BearCam is back up for the season.

(via: Gizmodo)