FY07-09 proposal 200705100

Jump to Reviews and Recommendations

Section 1. Administrative

Contacts

Section 2. Locations

Province / subbasin: Columbia Plateau / John Day

Section 3. Focal species

Section 4. Past accomplishments

Section 5. Relationships to other projects

Section 6. Biological objectives

Section 7. Work elements (coming back to this)

Section 8. Budgets

Itemized estimated budget

Total estimated FY 2007-2009 budgets

Cost sharing

Section 9. Project future

Future O&M costs:

Termination date: 10/2010
Comments: Project will be terminated after sufficient (3-4 years) distribution data has been collected on hatchery stray steelhead in the subbasin.

Final deliverables: A final report titled "Assesment of interactions between hatchery and wild steelhead in the John Day River Subbasin, Oregon" will be produced. This report will include summarized results for all objectives and work elements, and recomendations for continued monitoring of hatchery and wild steelhead interactions within the subbasin.

Section 10. Narrative and other documents

Reviews and recommendations

ISRP PRELIMINARY REVIEW (Jun 2, 2006)

Recommendation: Response requested

NPCC comments: This is a potentially high priority project that should receive priority funding, as the importance of the John Day wild steelhead population cannot be overstated. The sponsors make a very strong case for the need for this research and the likely impact that hatchery strays are currently having on the John Day steelhead. This needs to be investigated and documented in order to determine appropriate management plans. The problem of out-of-basin strays is well recognized within the John Day subbasin so the proposal addresses priorities in the subbasin, province, basin, and in NOAA recovery actions. It is not clear, however, that more data is even needed to identify that there is a problem. From the numbers and proportions of hatchery strays it is clear there is a huge problem. The sponsors should suggest a solution, identify that more data is needed to decide among the options, and provide convincing evidence that the radio tagging will provide the information. The data they presented from 2004 concluded that there was an escapement of 3,726 wild and 2284 hatchery summer steelhead to the John Day. With this substantial number, sponsors need to discuss the options for determining where these fish migrate to and if they spawn. This seems to be the essential question, along with where they came from. If there is sufficient CWTs on all the hatchery steelhead stocks, sponsors could just sample a bunch of them at different locations in the river, remove the CWTs, and determine which hatchery they came from. Whether the most efficient strategy to determine if they migrate upstream to spawning locations is just to seine and PIT tag or floy tag a significant number in the lower river and then search the spawning grounds, versus radio tagging only a modest number and then wiring the river and using mobile tracking, should be the obligation and responsibility of the sponsor. Clearly, assessing the relationship between hatchery and wild fish is clearly an important topic; the proposal does not adequately make the case that radio telemetry of 50 fish per year is the best way to go about it. The sample size is simply too small. Radio telemetry is more appropriate for studies involving general fish movements, migration timing, responses of movements of individual fish in relation to flows or other cues, habitat selection of adult fish, etc. Even if some hatchery fish are keeping company with some wild fish at some times and locations, which is always likely, the results will not easily translate into conclusions regarding hatchery/wild interactions beyond what is already known. Telemetry as a technology is ill-adapted to this sort of assessment. Technical and scientific background: The first half of the proposal was thorough and convincing; however, the last half (methods, objectives, monitoring and evaluation) was inappropriately brief. Elements appear to be appropriate and on the right track; however, more detail is required to determine that is so. The goal of this project is to collect data that will address the question of whether interactions between hatchery stray summer-steelhead have the potential to impact recovery of the wild population of summer steelhead in the John Day River subbasin. Recent projects to monitor the status and trends in steelhead redd abundance have discovered a greater presence of hatchery stray steelhead using the subbasin than previously thought. The John Day River subbasin is currently managed for wild steelhead and a better understanding of stray hatchery steelhead escapement, distribution, spawning success, hatchery of origin, and interaction with the wild stock is essential to recovery of the wild summer-run steelhead population. The John Day River subbasin is the second longest free-flowing river in the continental United States with a drainage area of 8000 mi2 and is home to the largest intact wild populations of spring Chinook salmon and summer-run steelhead trout in the Columbia River Basin. Steelhead are widely distributed throughout the subbasin and impacts from interbreeding with hatchery strays may be isolated to specific areas or widely distributed. Understanding how supplementation efforts throughout the Columbia River Basin relate to, and may impact the recovery of wild populations is an integral part of the management of the fishery within the Columbia River Basin. In sum, this issue of hatchery-wild interaction is relevant and important in basin. The objectives are clearly stated, but the method proposed are not likely to clearly answer the questions posed. Specifically, radio telemetry may not be the best way to address the issue of hatchery/wild interactions, and the chances of getting a clearly interpretable result seem slight.

ISRP FINAL REVIEW (Aug 31, 2006)

Recommendation: Not fundable

NPCC comments: The sponsor’s response does not provide convincing evidence that the radio-tagging approach will yield information important to addressing and solving a hatchery-wild interaction problem, if it exists. There are certainly enough hatchery-reared fish in the basin for the potential problem to exist. However, the design does not effectively get at the problem. The radio-telemetry approach works on such questions as fish passage, movements, etc. However, the telemetry approach with its small sample size does not appear to be the approach to answer the larger question of the degree of hatchery-wild interactions. It is an important question addressed by what appears to be the wrong (or an inadequate) technique. For this reason, the proposal is not fundable. There may be some better ways to address the issue of hatchery-wild interactions: perhaps through genetic pedigree analysis. An approach might be to put in picket weirs in the fall in some tributaries and conduct a parentage analysis by genotyping adults of known pedigree (hatchery vs. wild) and the ensuing juvenile production.