Tippets: Salmon DNA, Recovery on the Elwha, Greenback Cutthroat Fish Facts, Return of Atlantic Salmon, Saving Sturgeon

February 24, 2016 By: Erin Block

  • New research from Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Fisheries and Wildlife offers genetic evidence that hatchery fish are quick to change at the DNA level. The study was recently published in Nature Communications. “The genetic changes are substantial and rapid, the study found. It’s literally a process of evolution at work, but in this case it does not take multiple generations or long periods of time.” Via Oregon State University.
  • After the world’s largest dam removal to date, scientists remain surprised at the speed of environmental restoration on the Elwha River. “The hum of the generators is replaced by the river singing in full voice,” writes Lynda V. Mapes, “shrugging off a century of confinement like it never happened. Nature’s resurgence is visible everywhere.” Via The Seattle Times.
  • In a recent post Phil Monahan details the complicated history of Colorado’s greenback cutthroat trout. “Although the greenback cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarki stomias has been the focus of conservation efforts for more than half a century […] genetic research over the last decade has produced some blockbuster findings that threw all previous work into question.” Read more via Orvis.
  • Thanks to a restoration program started in the 1960s, for the first time since the Revolutionary War wild Atlantic salmon have been found spawning in the Connecticut River.
  • After their population was overfished and hurt by dams, lake sturgeon are making a strong comeback thanks to the work of many groups around the Great Lakes. “All who feel a sense of hopelessness about humanity’s future and the future of the natural world” writes Ted Williams, “need to contrast what we used to do to lake sturgeon with what we’re doing for them now.” Via Cool Green Science, The Nature Conservancy.