Fish and Wildlife

The Idaho Department of Education wants school districts to create new programs to prepare students to work in local industries.

Over at least two decades, Washington business owner Tod Reichert spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying exclusive hunting licenses he used to kill more than 100 elk. His license for the Ellensburg hunt, a “governor’s tag” auctioned to fund elk-related conservation efforts by state wildlife managers, cost him $50,000.

At their peak, grizzly bears numbered more than 50,000 in the Lower 48. Facing threats from habitat loss, hunting and conflicts with people and livestock, their numbers dwindled to fewer than 1,000 in the lower 48 by the time the Endangered Species Act was implemented in 1975. Here's a timeline of the management actions, court cases and notable events that have shaped grizzly bear recovery since their ESA listing through today.

The fight to save Columbia River salmon could hinge on a major battle taking place in the basin’s biggest reservoir. It pits biologists against a fish: The invasive northern pike.

Olympic National Park said a decomposing gray whale washed ashore Friday morning north of Kalaloch Campground. That makes the 24th dead whale stranding in Oregon and Washington this year during the northbound migration.

Pacific Northwesterners are undeniably fond of their endangered resident killer whales. Many locals are also fans of salmon fishing, a hobby that sustains charter fishing fleets in coastal harbors from Neah Bay, Washington, to Brookings, Oregon.But now there is a chance future fishing trips on the ocean could be curtailed to leave more food for the killer whales. Regulators are preparing to reassess the Pacific salmon harvest and an environmental lawsuit seeks more action to save orcas.

What to do with the four Lower Snake River dams and how to best protect imperiled salmon have been a tough questions for decades. They were the focus at a conference on salmon Tuesday at Boise State University’s Andrus Center for Public Policy.

The organization that sets limits for commercial, recreational and tribal salmon fisheries in the Pacific Northwest wrapped up their work Tuesday at a meeting in Northern California.

All this snow so late in the season prompts the much-asked question: Is this climate change? Kathie Dello, a climatologist with Oregon State University in Corvallis, says this late-winter snow is perfectly normal. But, it doesn’t mean the larger picture is all fine.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has started killing sea lions below Willamette Falls to protect a fragile run of winter steelhead.