Images

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.

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

Ryan Tomka retrieves an acoustic telemetry receiver from the lower Columbia River estuary. During the 2025 field season, researchers deployed acoustic telemetry equipment to track yearling Chinook salmon as they moved through both restored estuarine wetlands and the main Columbia River channel.

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.

This red spruce forest and understory vegetation are part of a larger patchwork of red spruce forest stands across the central and southern Appalachians, separated from each other by miles of hardwood such as maple, oak, and beech.

Red spruce forests, once widespread across the central and southern Appalachians, now persist only in scattered fragments on mountaintops.

USGS researchers with the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (NE CASC) and Virginia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, and graduate students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Va Tech) are working with the Central Appalachian Red Spruce Restoration Initiative, U.S. Forest Service, U.S.

Gaudineer Knob in eastern West Virginia is home to one of the few remaining old-growth red spruce forests in the region, sitting as a unique reminder of what red spruce forests once looked like across the central and southern Appalachians. 

Red spruce forests, once widespread across the central and southern Appalachians, now persist only in scattered fragments on mountaintops. 

Spruce Knob is the highest point in West Virginia, which offers incredible views of misty ridgelines and the unmistakable scent of spruce on cool mountain air.

A shelf full of legacy data collected on seabirds in Cook Inlet and Glacier Bay, Alaska.

The Kansas squash bee aids in pollinating squash flowers.

Credit: Ben Slyngstad, ORISE, National CASC

Roughly 32% of the ~5570 bee species native to the US are pollen specialists, making them an important part of ecosystems.

Credit: Ben Slyngstad, ORISE, National CASC

The Cranesbill miner bee helps pollinate many wild geraniums throughout woodlands and the eastern US.

Credit: Ben Slyngstad, ORISE, National CASC

The Blue calamintha bee is endemic to Florida and is typically found around sandy scrub habitats.

Credit: Ben Slyngstad, ORISE, National CASC

Alaska Science Center Data Management staff organize, scan, and digitally archive physical data. Once published as part of a data release, the physical data are organized and placed into banker boxes, labeled with pertinent information, such as the data release DOI, and moved to a secure location.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.