Columbia River Basin fish & wildlife managers discuss status of white sturgeon, 2025 forecasts and 2024 returns for salmon and steelhead

At April’s Council meeting, managers from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Idaho Department of Fish and Game provided forecasts for adult salmon and steelhead returns to the Columbia River Basin in 2025. They contrasted the forecasts with actual adult returns in 2024. Additionally, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife provided updates on the status of white sturgeon in the lower Columbia River up to the John Day reservoir.

2024 provided examples of both progress and challenges toward meeting the Columbia River Basin Fish & Wildlife Program’s objectives for adult returns of salmon and steelhead. The year featured record-setting adult returns of Okanagan Basin sockeye and Willamette River coho, yet the need remained for efforts to support, rebuild, and reintroduce, where appropriate, weaker stocks in the Basin. The Council’s upcoming process for updating and amending its Fish and Wildlife Program will look to continue building on progress while also addressing significant ongoing challenges. The Council is accepting public recommendations for the next Fish and Wildlife Program until May 19.

White sturgeon update

Laura Heironimus, WDFW’s sturgeon, smelt, and lamprey unit lead, presented on white sturgeon in the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam. Andrea Carpenter, sturgeon project leader for ODFW, covered white sturgeon populations from Bonneville to McNary Dam. Later this year, IDFG will present an update on Snake River sturgeon to the Council. (Read presentation | watch video)

Because their migration is not blocked by a dam, lower Columbia River white sturgeon can be found throughout accessible coastal and Puget Sound waterways. Annual population monitoring occurs from the mouth of the Columbia to Bonneville Dam.

Heironimus said the non-juvenile portion of the population is declining and now makes up more than half of the overall population. The desired status is to have 95% of the population be juvenile fish but 60% is considered adequate to maintain conservation status. This doesn’t mean the population is suffering reproductive failure, however. Every year, surveys find age-0 sturgeon in the lower Columbia and Willamette rivers. There are productivity issues affecting recruitment and survival of the age-0 fish, she said.

This decrease has led to fewer fish available to harvest. However, Heironimus credited changes in harvest management to an increasing trend in adult abundance, whose three-year average in 2024 eclipsed 12,000 fish (the desired status target is 9,250). She said sea lion predation is a factor in the weak population growth of white sturgeon. Removal efforts at Bonneville Dam have reduced the number of sea lions present at the dam in the fall from 30-40 per day in 2019 to three to four per day in 2024, according to WDFW.

Carpenter spoke to the population from Bonneville to McNary Dam. She said managers are seeing enough juvenile white sturgeon in the Bonneville and The Dalles reservoirs, respectively. This is not the case in the John Day reservoir, where individuals are growing but not being replaced, although there’s plenty of broodstock (breeding age) fish in the population. In the John Day reservoir, that means that, as of 2022, 20% of the population was juveniles and 80% non-juvenile. Conditions have been favorable to spawning for several years, and there’s a need to investigate factors limiting recruitment success in this stretch of the Columbia, Carpenter said.

Adult return forecasts for salmon and steelhead

Dr. Charlene Hurst, WDFW, Stuart Ellis, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and Dr. Sarah Maher, IDFG, presented the 2025 forecasts for adult returns of salmon and steelhead to the Columbia River Basin. (Read presentation | watch video)

Chinook salmon

Lower and upriver spring Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 217,500
• 2024 actual: 189,559

Columbia River fall Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 717,400
• 2024 actual: 669,505

Upriver bright fall Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 313,400
• 2024 actual: 318,089

Snake River wild fall Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 9,000
• 2024 actual: 12,657

Lower river hatchery fall Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 121,500
• 2024 actual: 114,431

Sockeye

Columbia River sockeye

• 2025 forecast: 350,200
• 2024 actual: 761,682

Coho

Columbia River coho ocean abundance

• 2025 forecast: 479,739
• 2024 actual: 736,982

Upriver coho passing Bonneville Dam

• 2024 actual: 169,934 (no 2025 forecast)

Steelhead

Total A-index summer steelhead

• 2025 forecast: 55,600
• 2024 actual: 121,579

Wild A-index summer steelhead

• 2025 forecast: 19,000
• 2024 actual: 36,543

Total B-index summer steelhead

• 2025 forecast: 11,800
• 2024 actual: 48,166

Wild B-index summer steelhead

• 2025 forecast: 1,100
• 2024 actual: 4,115

Chum

Columbia River chum

• 2025 forecast: 56,200
• 2023 actual: 21,463

Snake River Basin at Lower Granite Dam

Wild spring/summer Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 7,824
• 2024 actual: 7,382

Hatchery spring/summer Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 31,634
• 2024 actual: 42,026

Hatchery fall Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 26,244
• 2024 actual: 29,089

Wild fall Chinook

• 2025 forecast: 5,281
• 2024 actual: 7,729

Hatchery sockeye

• 2025 forecast: 680
• 2024 actual: 937

Wild sockeye

• 2025 forecast: 619
• 2024 actual: 84

Hatchery steelhead

• 2025 forecast: 25,790
• 2024 actual: 85,152

Wild steelhead

• 2025 forecast: 10,270
• 2024 actual: 17,532