FISHERIES --  Purse and beach seines are being deployed in the lower Columbia River in the first test of alternative commercial fishing gear on summer chinook salmon, the Columbia Basin Bulletin reports.

Oregon and Washington fisheries researchers are evaluating the effectiveness of alternatives to the gillnets used in commercial fisheries on the Columbia.

While gillnets kill the fish trapped in their mesh, purse seines theoretically can be used to capture fish alive so that marked, hatchery salmon and steelhead can be harvested while unmarked, potentially wild salmon and steelhead can be released unharmed.