Tuesday December 9, 2025
Oregon Wild —
The Oregon Court of Appeals has overturned a December 2022 rule by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) that weakened protections for migratory fish like salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, and lamprey. The Nez Perce Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, along with seven nonprofit organizations, had sued to overturn ODFW’s rule.
The court’s decision reinstates Oregon’s long-standing requirement that artificial barriers to fish migration, like dams, be upgraded to allow fish to swim freely past. The court struck down ODFW’s new rule allowing dam operators to trap salmon and load them into trucks for transport around dams—a process with much lower survival rates.