Front Lines of the Columbia

Monitoring the river day and night with our experimental pound net trap, we are at the front lines of the Columbia seven days a week, documenting the health of our region’s salmon and steelhead runs and the watershed that supports them.

Beyond achieving our primary research objectives to document long-term post-release survival from our State’s first commercial salmon trap in 80 years, our staff is closely analyzing the health of every fish that is captured and released. In the process, we are hot on the track of a strange condition that may be further ailing the Columbia’s threatened steelhead populations.

In the coming days, the crew will collaborate with experts from around the region to submit samples and identify the potentially threatening pathogen. WFC’s pound net trap is proving to be both an effective alternative commercial fishing gear and a valuable monitoring tool for our State’s resource managers.