Images

Chris Pullano and Ryan Tomka load acoustic telemetry receives on to boat in lower Columbia River estuary. Field work was recently completed for the first year of a study to better understand how young salmon use restored habitats in the Lower Columbia River Estuary.

Chirs Pullano and Collin Smith unearth the buried cable tethering an acoustic receiver to shore in the lower Columbia River estuary.  Shifting sands frequently bury equipment making it difficult to retrieve. During the 2025 field season, researchers deployed acoustic telemetry equipment to track yearling Chinook salmon as they moved through both restored e

Collin Smith records metadata for acoustic telemetry deployments in the lower Columbia River estuary.

This is a map of the nets on the Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon. The Western Fisheries Research Center carefully monitors juvenile Sucker populations for signs of population recovery and to better understand where they habitate.

We pack up, leave shore, and head toward our first target—a set of trap nets--with tempered hopes of finding something exceedingly rare: evidence of surviving juvenile suckers. After hours on the lake and around 20 nets void of juvenile suckers, we steer the boat back towards the marshlands near our truck. 

Since 2009, the WFRC has partnered with Real Time Research to study bird predation of suckers. Scientists scan large nesting sites of fish-eating (piscivorous) birds, looking for PIT tags from juvenile and adult suckers that have been eaten by the birds.

Lost River and Shortnose suckers are on the verge of extinction in Upper Klamath Lake. Age data indicate that almost all adult suckers remaining in the lake spawning populations were hatched in the early 1990s.

This is a photo of the endangered Klamath Sucker in Upper Klamath Lake, OR. Through decades of research, scientists of the USGS Western Fisheries Research Center have determined that, over the last 30 years, something has prevented young suckers from reaching adulthood.

Its early morning as we pass a green expanse of farmland and pull into a parking lot with a boat ramp sloping into the massive waters of Upper Klamath Lake. Paving machines drone next to us, widening the road winding along the lake shore.

This is an infographic of the life cycle of the parasite, Diplostomum gavium. This parasite affects the Sucker fish in the Upper Klamath Lake. Upper Klamath Lake is home to large colonies of birds and an abundance of snails and fish, making it a haven for trematodes who are reliant on all three for their life cycle. Birds host adult flukes in their intestines.

This is a photo of Melanie Prentice and Grace Crandall working in the lab at the Western Fisheries Research Center Marrowstone Marine Field Station to find the causative agent behind Sea Star Wasting Disease, a bacteria called, Vibrio pectenicida.

In this photo, Paul Hershberger is conducting research in the Seattle Western Fisheries Research Center wet laboratory. He is working to study diseases in fish.

This is fieldwork from a Chinook salmon egg survival pilot study in the Sacramento River. Egg boxes were placed in the river at different locations to collect data on egg-to-fry survival. Some examples of data collected include water velocity and river flow, gravel temperature, scour and deposition, and sediment type.

This is a photo of fieldwork on the pilot Chinook egg survival study occurring in the Sacramento River, California.

Salmon life cycles from egg to spawning adults with text explaining each life phase. 

In this image, scientists are exposing fish to the toxic chemical, 6PPD-quinone, to better understand the toxin's effects. This work is being done at the Western Fisheries Research Center wetlab. The science is then used to develop solutions to the toxin.

This is a photo of a cutthroat trout being measured. It will then be used in experiments to understand the sublethal effects of the toxic tire byproduct chemical, 6PPD-quinone.

This is a photo of a Chinook salmon fry taken by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Roger Tabor, a Fish Biologist at the Western Washington FWCO.

This is a fish lifecycle diagram with the redd (egg), alevin, fry, and adult stages shown.

This is the lower Granite Lock and Dam. Lower Granite Lock and Dam was authorized by the River and Harbor Act of 1945. The project includes a dam, a navigation lock, powerhouse, a fish ladder and associated facilities. It provides hydropower, navigation, flood risk management, fish and wildlife habitat, recreation and incidental irrigation.

This is the chemical structure of 6PPD-quinone, a toxic byproduct of the tire additive, 6PPD, which is used to make vehicle tires strong and safe on the roads. This toxic byproduct gets into runoff and into streams. This causes mortality in certain salmonids.