Trailblazing Oregon Fish and Wildlife director talks fishing fees, wolves, coho boom and more

In this episode of the Explore Oregon Podcast, host Zach Urness talks with Debbie Colbert, director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Colbert became the first female director of ODFW, an agency tracing its history back to the 1800s, in May of 2024. In the podcast, she talked about her background as a field scientist and her first year as director, before jumping into hot-button topics like fee increases for fishing and hunting licenses, the future of Oregon's hatcheries and wild fish, wolf management, whale entanglement and some big wins for like the coastal coho salmon recovery.