As children, most of us learned about the passenger pigeons, whose huge flocks darkened America’s skies before they became extinct a century ago. Another lesson came from the buffalo that we did our best to eradicate from the Great Plains. Less understood is what goes on underwater in our lakes, rivers and streams. Now, a new report by Trout Unlimited shows disturbing parallels with […]
Fish
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Mapping fish die-offs in warming waters
Help High Country News identify trouble spots for West Coast fish runs.
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Invasive crayfish in Oregon devastate native newts
At Crater Lake, the National Park Service is seeking solutions — but it could be too late.
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Wild Science: Migratory birds on the Great Salt Lake
Scientists explore how phalaropes respond to less water and increased salinity.
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
Sea lions feast on Columbia salmon
Fishermen, tribes and environmentalists flummoxed as predator numbers swell below Bonneville Dam.
Posted inAugust 3, 2015: Outflanked
Does the fate of the silvery minnow foretell the Rio Grande’s future?
Biologists go to great lengths to keep the fish alive, but it’s nearly extinct in the wild.
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Old mines still plague Montana’s Clark Fork
Why one of the nation’s largest Superfund river sites can’t address pollution from abandoned mines.
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For sea lions, a feast of salmon on the Columbia
Fishermen, tribes and environmentalists flummoxed as predator numbers swell below Washington’s Bonneville Dam.
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Grand Canyon floods are rebuilding sandbars
But there are limits to what can be done to tweak dam management to benefit ecosystems.
Posted inJune 8, 2015: Tree of Life
A bull trout reintroduction in Oregon proves what’s possible
The ambitious effort brings a threatened predator back to the Clackamas watershed.
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Senate considers legislation to help the West store and conserve water
Twelve Western states have declared drought emergencies.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
Fisher-poets of the pale tide
A gathering of maritime minstrels on the Oregon coast.
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For rural Oregonians, protections from herbicides come up short
Aerial spray regs remain the West Coast’s weakest after the death of a key law.
Posted inApril 27, 2015: Lost frontier
A plague on the Klamath River
The race to prevent a repeat of the West’s worst salmon-kill.
Posted inApril 27, 2015: Lost frontier
Tribal fishing on the Klamath River
Photographs of sturgeon, steelhead, salmon and lamprey fishing.
Posted inApril 27, 2015: Lost frontier
Refugees from a well-watered West
Review of “Relicts of a Beautiful Sea” by Christopher Norment.
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Idaho’s Panther Creek comes back from the dead
Two decades after restoration began, life returns to a stream sterilized by mining.
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Washington’s Swinomish sue to halt Bakken oil trains
Many communities fight transport of crude oil through their towns; some find legal footing to succeed.
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Tribal water compact moving through Montana legislature
But the bill stirs up longstanding criticism of basic tribal sovereignty.
Posted inMarch 16, 2015: Wild Ride
Latest: Oregon chub is no longer endangered
The species became the first fish to recover enough to be delisted.