Field Reports: Wildlife agency names local boss
WILDLIFE – Steve Pozzanghera, currently the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department’s deputy assistant director for wildlife programs, has been named the agency’s manager for the state’s 10 easternmost counties.
Pozzanghera, 48, will move from Olympia to Spokane, where his new job takes effect Feb. 1, said department spokeswoman Madonna Luers.
Pozzanghera also has been the carnivore program director during his 17-year career with the agency.
“He does a lot of legislative work in Olympia because of his expertise and credibility with the lawmakers,” Luers said. “He may be splitting some of this time between the Legislature and Spokane this winter.”
Pozzanghera succeeds regional manager John Andrews, who retired in November.
Rich Landers
Swan shooting case lures $1,800 reward
The Dec. 28 killing of a trumpeter swan on the Colville River has prompted birdwatchers and angry local residents to accumulate a reward fund of at least $1,800.
The incident occurred during early afternoon about three miles west of Colville where the Valley-Westside Road crosses the Colville River. (The location was incorrectly reported on Thursday.)
“This was a malicious act that demands public response,” said Warren Current, a Colville-area resident who’s handling the donations for the reward to bag the poacher.
Report any information that might lead to arresting the poacher to Washington’s Poaching Hotline, (877) 933-9847, or the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department’s Spokane office, (509) 892-1001.
Rich Landers
Steelhead hole up until spring flows
FISHING – The record surge of steelhead over the Snake River’s Lower Granite Dam has subsided to a trickle of just two or three a day as the fish migration stalls for winter.
But the run is not over.
The steelhead tend to hunker in deeper, slower water scattered along the Columbia and Snake rivers and their tributaries as they save their energy. Longer days and spring runoff will prompt them to continue their run toward spawning areas or hatchery release sites.
On Dec. 30, only three steelhead passed over Lower Granite Dam compared with more than 30,000 a day in mid-August.
The total count of summer steelhead passing over Lower Granite as of Dec. 30 was 312,430. That compares with 167,597 in 2008 and a five-year average of 149,199.
Much of that record run remains in the rivers. They can be caught during winter, but the fishing success will improve dramatically as the run commences in late February and March.
Rich Landers