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Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt. (snip) The Senate rejected the amendment by a largely party-line 61-36 margin, with Feinstein opposing the restoration of water deliveries to farmers. The California senator claimed she was blindsided by the amendment to the bill she was managing in the Senate, bizarrely comparing the move to a "Pearl Harbor." "No one from California has called, written or indicated they wanted this on the calendar," Feinstein protested.

Last week, FNC’s Sean Hannity traveled to the San Joaquin Valley to report on the man-made drought that’s wreaking havoc on farmers in the name of saving the Delta smelt: {video}...Earlier tonight, GOP South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint tried to turn the water back on. The Senate voted down his amendment, 61-36. Here’s the roll call vote.

The latest weapon in the battle over the legitimacy of some functional brain scanning studies is a dead fish. In study titled "Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon", researchers scanned 1.7 kg (3.8 pounds) of a dead salmon while it was shown images of humans in various social situations. It's not clear how long the salmon had been dead by the time it was studied, but Craig Bennett at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says he scanned it about an hour after picking it up from the supermarket, so it was definitely already a...

Marinade: 1/4 cup olive oil 1/4 cup fresh lemon Juice 2 large cloves garlic - peeled and smashed 1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves - 4 salmon steaks Directions: 1. Put the marinade ingredients into a blender or food processor and puree just until the basil leaves are minced. 2. Put half the marinade and the salmon steaks into a heavy plastic or glass bowl. Seal or cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Save remaining marinade for basting.

In a case closely followed by environmental and business interests, a rewritten plan for restoring endangered and threatened wild salmon runs on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Washington state and Idaho includes studying the possibility of breaching four major hydroelectric dams if other steps don't reverse the decline. The revised Northwest plan, known as a biological opinion, was submitted Tuesday by the Obama administration to U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland, Ore., who had been critical of a previous plan submitted by the Bush administration that rejected even a study of breaching the four dams on the lower...

The Obama administration said Tuesday the federal government's salmon and dam plan for the Columbia and Snake rivers, with modifications, will not jeopardize endangered salmon and steelhead. A drop in the populations of the endangered salmon and steelhead in the region would trigger a new review of the recovery efforts and a consideration of alternatives including breaching four dams on the lower Snake River. But the administration said that the so called biological opinion, "combined with the implementation plan, is legally and biologically sound and based on the best available science." It would order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers...

FRESNO, Calif. – Top Obama administration officials are taking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to task for blaming the state's water crisis on federal environmental restrictions. The governor sent a letter to Washington Wednesday demanding a response to "catastrophic impacts" he said were caused by environmental rules that have slashed water deliveries.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Yukon River smokehouses should be filled this summer with oil-rich strips of king salmon — long used by Alaska Natives as a high-energy food to get through the long Alaska winters. But they're mostly empty. The kings failed to show up, and not just in the Yukon. One Alaska river after another has been closed to king fishing this summer because significant numbers of fish failed to return to spawn. The dismally weak return follows weak runs last summer and poor runs in 2007, which also resulted in emergency fishing closures. "It is going to be a...

BONNEVILLE, Wash. -- Under order of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries, the trapping project at Bonneville Dam continues, with four more sea lions getting euthanized.

A federal judge Thursday denied a request by the Humane Society of the United States for a stay of his order allowing three Western states to resume capturing or killing sea lions that feed on salmon at the base of Bonneville Dam. U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled in November against the Humane Society, which is trying to prevent Oregon, Washington and Idaho from killing or transporting up to 425 California sea lions over five years to relieve pressure on the spring chinook salmon run. Charles Hudson, spokesman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, called Thursday's motion a "Hail...

The nets that volunteers held in a remote river valley near Bodega Bay were full of the squiggling bluish fish that biologists hope will be the seed population of a new race of coho salmon. The scaly, flapping critters were carried in nets from a truck 25 yards to the banks of Salmon Creek, a western Sonoma County tributary that winds through a stunning rural valley. The 305 hatchery-raised coho were the first of their kind seen in any significant numbers in the degraded watershed since the mid-1970s, but their release last month was more than just a reintroduction. It...

A federal judge this week gave the go-ahead to kill sea lions feasting on salmon at Bonneville Dam, but a Washington state fishery manager said Wednesday that managers will continue to try to trap and relocate the animals first. U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman on Tuesday ruled against the Humane Society of the United States, which sued to block the lethal-take permit issued to state fishery managers earlier this year by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The states want to kill nuisance sea lions that have in recent years taken advantage of a man-made bottleneck to devour imperiled salmon. “We’re...

Oh yeah, that's a big one. Wildlife officials in northern California last week came across one of the biggest Chinook salmon ever found in the state — a monster more than 4 feet long and weighing 85 pounds. "We see lots of big ones," Doug Killam, a biologist in the California Department of Fish and Game's Red Bluff office, told the Redding Record Searchlight, "but this one was just bigger than most big ones — it was just spectacular." The big fish had recently spawned and died, Killam said, and probably weighed about 90 pounds when it began its 100-mile...

Jennifer Carah is a scientist who doesn't normally squeal, especially not when she is under water, but a recent snorkeling expedition in an obscure creek on the North Coast caused her to abandon all scholarly protocol. "Yeeeee heeeeee," she shrieked through her snorkel upon spotting a mass of little fish behind a rock in Pardaloe Creek, a remote tributary of the Garcia River, in the heavily logged forests of Mendocino County. The critters that elicited the squeal were endangered coho salmon. In fact, juvenile coho were found in 10 places where they had not been seen in years in the...

SWEET AND SAUCY GRILLED SALMON Recipe by Alaska Fisherman Sarah Palin Wasilla, Alaska 1 can (12 oz.) tomato sauce 1/4 cup packed brown sugar 1/4 cup molases 3 tbsp. ketchup 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar 2 tbsp. dried minced onion 1 tbsp. Worcestershure sauce 1 tbsp. mustard 1 tbsp. dried bell pepper dices 1/4 tsp. each cinnamon and nutmeg 4 to 6 Alaska salmon fillets or steaks (4 to 6 oz. each) Blend all ingredients, except seafood, in bowl; let set 10 to 15 minutes. Dip seafood into sauce, then place on hot oiled grill, not directly over heat source...

The salmon looked like shadows gliding silently beneath the surface of a pool between the foaming rapids of rugged Butte Creek. Suddenly, with a splash, a big glittering fish leaped out of the water, then another and another. The spring-run chinook were jumping this past week in the remote, forested gorge outside Chico. "This is the last best run of wild salmon in California," said Allen Harthorn, 56, the executive director of Friends of Butte Creek, who has been fighting for more than a decade to save the historic - and once sacred - spring run of chinook in this...

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Six federally protected sea lions were apparently shot to death on the Columbia River as they lay in open traps put out to ensnare the animals, which eat endangered salmon. State and federal authorities are investigating. The discovery came one day after three elephant seals were found shot to death at a breeding ground in central California. Trapping will be suspended during the investigation, said Rick Hargrave, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife who was at the scene Sunday.

State and federal authorities said they are investigating the deaths of six sea lions found dead at the Columbia River traps. They appeared to have been shot. The bodies of four California sea lions and two Steller sea lions were found at the traps early Sunday afternoon. There were two California sea lions and one Steller sea lion at each of two traps just below the Bonneville Dam. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and federal investigators are treating the area as a crime scene. Both species of sea lion are federally protected but Oregon and Washington state are...

HORSETHIEF LAKE, Wash. -- Fidelia Andy was a 6-year-old happily running coffee to tribal fishermen at Celilo Falls when the federal government signed a deal with the tribes that flooded the falls and her family's home in the rising waters behind The Dalles Dam. On Friday, more than 50 years later, Andy and other leaders of four Northwest tribes finalized a new $900 million agreement with the federal government that they hope will begin to reverse the damage done by Columbia River system dams. "We Indians gave up so much in the past," Andy, a Yakama tribal leader and chairwoman...

Salmon fishing was banned along the West Coast for the first time in 160 years Thursday, a decision that is expected to have a devastating economic impact on fishermen, dozens of businesses, tourism and boating. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez immediately declared a commercial fishery disaster, opening the door for Congress to appropriate money for anyone who will be economically harmed. The closure of commercial and recreational fishing for chinook salmon in the ocean off California and most of Oregon was announced by the National Marine Fishery Service. It followed the recommendation last month of the Pacific Fishery Management Council after...

A federal appeals court injunction issued Wednesday says Northwest states can trap, but not kill, the animalsThe on-again, off-again permission for Oregon and Washington officials to kill salmon-gobbling sea lions below Bonneville Dam is off again, courtesy of a federal appeals court injunction issued Wednesday. However, the appeals court said state officials could still capture sea lions and ship them to zoos. Oregon officials said they will begin trapping up to eight of the Bonneville animals today. The sea lions gather at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River to feast on salmon, including imperiled species, gathering to climb the dam's...

The Humane Society of the United States has filed a request for an emergency injunction asking a federal appeals court to block the government from killing protected sea lions at Bonneville Dam. U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman rejected a request for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday even though he said the Humane Society might prevail in court with a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the states of Oregon and Washington. The ruling left open the possibility the states could begin killing the sea lions today. But the government and the Humane Society said they did not expect...

A federal judge on Wednesday refused to stop fishery officials from trapping and killing California sea lions who are eating endangered salmon at Bonneville Dam. The Humane Society of the United States had challenged the plan, arguing that federal officials had failed to show that trapping the sea lions will have a significant impact on the salmon runs. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman said the government had shown that the sea lions were doing "serious damage." The Humane Society also argued that trapping and killing the animals would harm kayakers and others who have established relationships with individual...

San Francisco, CA (AP) -- A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that water regulators failed to consider the effects of global warming and other environmental issues related to the decline of California salmon populations when they approved increased pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger said a 2004 study prepared by federal regulators to support the increased water exports was scientifically inadequate. "There is no analysis of adverse effect on critical habitat," Wanger wrote about winter-run chinook salmon. The judge also ruled that there was a "total failure to address, adequately explain, and analyze the effects...

Any hopes salmon fishermen had for even token chinook fishing in Oregon faded Thursday when federal fisheries managers adopted the most restrictive limits on West Coast salmon fisheries in history.The recommendation by the Pacific Fishery Management Council allows fishing for 9,000 hatchery coho salmon off Central Oregon. No other salmon fishing will be allowed south of Cape Falcon, a point between Seaside and Tillamook.That eliminates a fishery that has typically been one of the richest on the West Coast, averaging catches of more than 800,000 chinook annually from 2000 to 2005.Salmon fishing north of Cape Falcon and in Washington...

The authorized killing of California sea lions at a dam on the Columbia River would be postponed under a proposal reached Tuesday by the Humane Society of the United States and federal and state governments. The Humane Society filed a motion March 28 seeking a preliminary injunction against the authorization for killing the animals and said it would seek a temporary restraining order if it wasn't granted by Friday, the earliest date the "lethal removal" was likely to begin. Those favoring the removal say the sea lions are damaging salmon runs listed under the Endangered Species Act and protected at...

PORTLAND -- The Humane Society of the United States, Wild Fish Conservancy and two citizens have filed suit in U.S. District Court to halt the authorized killing of sea lions at the base of Bonneville Dam in the Columbia River. The lawsuit, filed Monday, had been filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., last week but it was withdrawn when the fish conservancy group asked to join it. The National Marine Fisheries Service has granted a request by Oregon and Washington to kill up to 85 animals a year over five years to protect endangered or threatened salmon runs. The...

The hunter may soon become the hunted at Bonneville Dam. Sea lions have in recent years converted the damÂ’s forebay into their own salmon buffet line, but soon they may eat their last meal. Federal authorities last week granted a request by the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho to shoot California sea lions believed to be taking a chunk of salmon stocks that have already dwindled nearly to the point of extinction. The issue pits one creature against another, but it more fundamentally raises questions about humansÂ’ role in trying to strike a balance. Ultimately, itÂ’s likely someone will...

Federal fisheries managers are giving the go-ahead today for Oregon and Washington officials to trap and, if necessary, kill sea lions that wolf down thousands of salmon at Bonneville Dam every year. The Associated Press received a copy of the order late Monday. It limits lethal removal to sea lions deemed to have a significant effect on federally protected salmon and steelhead stocks. They must have been seen eating such fish between Jan. 1 and May 31 of any year. The order says sea lions captured in traps must be held for at least 48 hours to allow a search...

The agreement announced Tuesday on the future of the Klamath River offers reason for cautious hope that the troubled waterway can recover from years of human intervention and abuse while meeting the conflicting needs of fish and farms. The agreement � forged by the farmers, fishermen, American Indians, government agencies and conservation groups whose views on the Klamath’s future long have clashed � achieves the seemingly impossible: a broadly supported plan to allocate the free-flowing waters of the river without dams. Therein lies the hope. And therein lies the caution. That these longtime adversaries, who for years battled over a...

PORTLAND, ORE. -- A federal agency recommends killing about 30 sea lions a year at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River to keep them from eating salmon and steelhead. It was among four proposals listed by NOAA Fisheries Service after meetings of a task force last year and requests in 2006 by Oregon, Washington and Idaho to allow removal of some of the animals, which are protected under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. At least three upper Columbia River spring salmon runs that pass through the dam are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Sea lions, while...

A Chum Salmon In the photo above, a large male chum salmon is attempting to cross a flooded roadway in the lower Skokomish valley. Behind it, a dozen or so other salmon are awaiting their chance at a crossing. Many of these chum salmon will be successful in reaching their upstream spawning grounds, but others will be stranded by the receding flood waters and may die before spawning.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — To Columbia River tribes, California sea lions are salmon-gobbling menaces that have outgrown their need for federal protection, threaten tribal livelihoods and fly in the face of treaty rights. Animal rights advocates see them as a politically convenient scapegoat used to explain dwindling salmon runs when the real problems lie elsewhere. On Sept. 4 a broad-based federal task force meets here to make a recommendation to NOAA Fisheries as to whether to allow some sea lions, protected under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, to be killed to take pressure off salmon runs. In recent years...

A river regained JEFFREY P. MAYOR; The News Tribune PORT ANGELES – Floating down the Elwha River on Thursday, Robert Elofson nodded his head in appreciation. A trio of harlequin ducks skittered across the river’s tumbling surface as they took off. Downstream, a handful of mergansers quietly dozed, ignoring the three rafts drifting by their riverside roost. Rings on the river’s surface marked the occasional rise of a trout as it slurped in a bug for a midday meal. With the Elwha River already a remarkable outdoors experience for kayakers, rafters and anglers, Elofson believes it will become so much...

WASHINGTON - The Interior Department's inspector general didn't find political interference by Vice President Dick Cheney on a key environmental policy in part because investigators weren't looking for it, an Interior official said Tuesday. A 2004 report by the inspector general found no basis for a claim by then-Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry that White House political advisers interfered in developing water policy in the Klamath River Basin in California and Oregon. But investigators did not ask about Cheney — and no Interior employee volunteered information about him, said Mary Kendall, deputy Interior inspector general. A former high-ranking Interior official,...

Most animal rights activists put themselves in the stickiest contradiction and never seem to realize it. One day the self-appointed protector of the environment decries humanity for encroaching on wildlife and crimping the mating habits of the deer mouse; and the next day the same environmentalist swears by the theory of evolution, praising the notion of survival of the fittest and natural selection. Such is the situation that the Department of Agriculture has gotten itself into. DOA has actually deployed a salmon protection team to fend off hungry sea lions. Ironically, "preliminary numbers indicate the sea lions caught more salmon...

ENTIAT -- For the first time in decades, the adult spring Chinook salmon now returning to the Entiat National Fish Hatchery will not be spawned and reared as the next generation of Entiat River hatchery fish. Instead, the 575 salmon that returned to the hatchery by Monday were caught in nets, clubbed and given to American Indian tribes on the Colville and Spokane reservations to be used in ceremonies or as food for tribal members. Dozens more spring chinook are likely to return to the hatchery in the next week, and will also be given to the tribes, said Julie...

Signs emerge of vigilante approach to protected sea lions 4/19/2007, 5:25 p.m. PT By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER The Associated Press    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The competition between protected sea lions gobbling Columbia River salmon and impatient humans with empty fishing lines has led to vigilante action.A fisherman shot a sea lion who stole a salmon off the line of a fellow angler Wednesday at a popular fishing spot near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers.The sea lion was hit twice but reported alive in the river Wednesday night.Fishermen have complained that the sea lions eat too...

California citrus farmers would get $20 million, spinach growers $25 million and salmon fishermen $60.4 million in an emergency war spending bill that passed a House committee Thursday. The money for citrus and spinach growers is part of $3.7 billion for farm disaster relief in the bill, including $1.8 billion for crop loss assistance and $1.48 billion for livestock compensation. Farmers in California and other states would be able to apply for that crop and livestock money. The relief comes as part of a $124 billion war spending bill - including $95.5 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq...

PacifiCorp may agree to removing dams But such a step to help Klamath salmon runs wouldn't be taken if higher power rates resulted, the utility says The new president of PacifiCorp's power generating division says the utility could agree to remove five dams from the Klamath River to help restore salmon if customers don't have to pay more for electricity. "We have heard the tribes' concerns," PacifiCorp Energy President Bill Fehrman said in a statement posted Wednesday on the utility's Web site. "We are not opposed to dam removal or other settlement opportunities as long as our customers are not...

RUSSIAN RIVER -- The red salmon came again this June in a gray-backed wave of life that at times nearly obscured the rocky, rubble bottom of this stream. No one could have imagined such a bounty nearly 40 years ago when the groundwork was being laid for the revitalization of the popular Kenai Peninsula fishery. The river then supported a healthy salmon fishery, but it was nothing compared to what it is today. Red salmon used to return each summer by the thousands or tens of thousands. Now, between the early run just finishing and the late run just beginning,...

Agency Delays Salmon Disaster Declaration WASHINGTON (AP) - West Coast salmon fishermen waiting for up to $80 million in disaster relief from a sharply curtailed fishing season are caught in a dispute between a regional fisheries office and the national headquarters. A disaster recommendation from a regional office of the National Marine Fisheries - which cleared the way for the fishermen to receive aid - was overruled by officials at the agency's suburban Washington headquarters. A final decision is not expected until February, well past the end of the fishing season, said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., who is furious over...

Long-gone salmon species to populate Lake Ontario once more Province set to release about 400,000 Atlantic salmon into three watersheds Globe and Mail April 28, 2006 JAMES RUSK Lake Ontario will receive a massive restocking of Atlantic salmon in an attempt to return a species of fish to the lake that died out more than a century ago, it was announced yesterday. Over the past 20 years, the province has added a number of the fish to the lake as part of a restoration plan, and over the next year about 400,000 Atlantic salmon will be released into three...

Federal regulators have voted to impose severe restrictions on salmon fishing off the coasts of Oregon and Northern California to protect dwindling populations in the Klamath River. The Pacific Fishery Management Council decided to close about 700 miles of coastline to commercial salmon fishing for most of June and July. Those are generally the most productive months of the season.

Despite bombs, boats and rubber bullets, dozens of sea lions are continuing to kill salmon near the Bonneville Dam. This month, biologists are trying one last time to scare off the problem sea lions, but if that doesn't work, they may try to kill them. Sea lions could kill as much as 10 percent of this spring's salmon run and biologists say if they cannot get the problem solved soon, the situation could get ugly. The problem is that the salmon are disappearing. An estimated 8,000 salmon will be lost this spring at Bonneville Dam. "The difficult part about it...

CASCADE LOCKS, Ore. - In his way, C404 is kind of cute, with those sea-lion whiskers, soft brown eyes and furry little head. But to many he is a sea lion either from hell _ or from Harvard. C404 has driven the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Bonneville Dam to near distraction as he and his ilk sit at the base and munch salmon gathered to continue upriver to spawn. Numerous sea lions head for the dam each spring, but C404 is in a class by himself. He has figured out how to get into fish ladders that help...

A federal judge on Monday ordered the government to institute a Klamath River management plan immediately instead of waiting five more years, which means farmers could be deprived of irrigation if water levels drop low enough to threaten the survival of coho salmon. U.S. District Court Judge Saundra B. Armstrong, who sits in Oakland, said if river levels fail to meet 100 percent of the water flow needed for the coho as determined by the National Marine Fisheries Service, then farmers who rely on the Klamath will have to do without. That should not be a problem this year because...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. PORTLAND, Ore. - Conceding that using hatcheries to supplement dwindling salmon populations is harming wild salmon species in some cases, the Bush administration plans to move away from the practice in favor of a more direct solution: Catch fewer fish. James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, announced the new policy Wednesday at a meeting of salmon scientists, many of whom have concluded that wild Pacific salmon will become extinct this century without big changes in how the harvest is managed. "Our goal is to minimize and,...

Fish diet 'brings a brighter baby' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 20/01/2006) Pregnant women who eat more fish, which contains omega-3 fatty acids, tend to have brighter, more sociable children, claim researchers. The amount of omega-3 helps to determine the child's intelligence, fine motor skills - the ability to manipulate small objects and hand and eye co-ordination - and the propensity to anti-social behaviour, says a study by Dr Joseph Hibbeln, of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.Omega-3 is found in oily fish like salmon The findings, which were presented to a meeting in London this week, show...