WASHINGTON – Michael Tehan had dedicated his 43-year career in the federal government to preserving salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest, but soon after the fish biologist decided to retire in February, he got a phone call that made it clear his work wasn’t over.

Like Tehan, who already planned to retire from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the end of 2025, some of the federal employees who operate fish hatcheries had accepted the “deferred resignation” and early retirement offers that were central to the Trump administration’s effort to downsize the government workforce. Coupled with the administration’s mass firing of workers who had spent less than a year on the job, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lost nearly a third of its staff at five hatcheries i

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