Sockeye salmon over Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. Lower temperatures in 2008 North Pacific waters brought in fatter plankton, which, along with greater outflows of Columbia River water, fed the resurgent populations. Proposed legislative efforts, such as the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, are attempting to protect the headwaters of the sockeye salmon by preventing industrial development in roadless areas. Record numbers of a once-waning population of sockeye salmon have been returning to the Northwest's Columbia Basin (as of June 2012), with thousands more crossing the river's dams in a single day than the total numbers seen in some previous years.
Fish tug the 1930s it became common to add a pilothouse amidship or near the stern, and to continue the cabin covering to the bow in what was known as a "sprayhood." Steel-hulled boats began to replace wooden-hulls in the late 1950s. Beginning in the 1970s, new regulations began to greatly restrict gill-net fishing, making the fish tug all but obsolete. The few fish tugs that remain in use today are largely objects of historical preservation efforts and not under commercial ownership. Fish tug A fish tug (sometimes called fishtug, fish tugboat, fishing tug, etc.) is a type of boat that was