Wednesday March 19, 2025
The Columbian —
The number of salmon returning to the Columbia and Snake rivers this year is expected to beat the 10-year average return. That’s according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The positive projections for this year are a rare piece of good news amid a long-standing and dramatic decline in numbers of the keystone species regionally — a pattern that’s especially true for wild fish.
While NOAA’s 2024-2025 California Current Ecosystem Status Report mostly focuses on West Coast ocean conditions, it also contains significant data and projections about salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin. “California Current” refers to a cold water Pacific Ocean current that moves south from Canada to northern Mexico.
Rachel Hager, a spokeswoman for NOAA Fisheries, said that recent ocean conditions and a strong El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific in 2024 indicate that Chinook salmon returns to the Columbia Basin will improve in 2025.