It will be awhile before the record floodwaters from this week’s back to back atmospheric rivers fully drain away across the North Sound and elsewhere in Washington and the true extent of damage to homes, farms, businesses, towns, roads and other infrastructure is known.

Just two days after Washington state wildlife overseers turned down his “critical” request last month for wolves for a voter-mandated reintroduction effort, the former director of Colorado Parks & Wildlife sent a last-ditch plea to the Colville Tribes.

The good news? With removal of four dams on the Klamath River completed in 2024, thousands of Chinook have wasted little time making their way back into Southern Oregon waters.
The not-so-good news? So too have poachers. Or at least two, anyway.

Columbia salmon managers are forecasting 147,300 above-Bonneville-bound spring Chinook in 2026, similar to last season’s actual return that bested the prediction by over 30,000 fish and allowed for angling in May and June on the lower river.

Crabbers who harvested Dungies in Puget Sound’s Eastern Straits, San Juans and Admiralty Inlet will receive an invite to complete an anonymous online survey about their 2025 catches starting tomorrow, a WDFW project “to understand catch patterns in smaller parts of these areas so we can make well-informed management decisions about the fishery.”