FY07-09 proposal 199801001

Jump to Reviews and Recommendations

Section 1. Administrative

Contacts

Section 2. Locations

Province / subbasin: Blue Mountain / Grande Ronde

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: There are likely to be foreseeable but unpredictable capital costs that have not been accounted for in any of these budgets, such as replacement of filter systems, pumping systems or tanks or roofing repairs at Bonneville Fish Hatchery or Wallowa Fish Hatchery. Also, our fish transport vehicles are ageing and may need to be replaced, which will cost approximately $60,000.

Termination date:
Comments:

Final deliverables:

Section 10. Narrative and other documents

Reviews and recommendations

ISRP PRELIMINARY REVIEW (Jun 2, 2006)

Recommendation: Response requested

NPCC comments: The Grande Ronde Captive Broodstock Operations and Maintenance project collects natural parr from Catherine Creek, the Grande Ronde River, and the Lostine River, rears these individuals to adulthood in either freshwater or saltwater, spawns them, and then rears their progeny to the smolt stage for release back into the three natal streams. The smolts are intended to migrate to the ocean and then return as adults and then finally reproduce. The project has achieved modest success at rearing the natural parr to adults, but has fallen short of the goal of releasing 150,000 smolts into each stream because of BKD mortality. There have also been modest returns of the hatchery produced smolts as adults to the three treatment streams. The historical description in the proposal was helpful, particularly the presentation of past findings. The summary of the project and the returns of adult fish are welcome. The summary indicates that returning adult fish have exceeded projections for 1998 and 1999 cohorts, but no breakdown by sex is given. If these encouraging results are largely male jacks, the outcome is not as favorable as the raw number would suggest. The report that > 95% of the adults in the Grande Ronde River in 2004 and 2005 are from the Captive Broodstock program would support the need for this type of action, but this also raises concern about inbreeding in the population. The program had better returns in the first years than later, and the release of 200,000 smolts from the 2001 spawn year produced only 58 adults whereas a release of 151,000 from the 2000 spawn year produced 546 adults. This suggests that some potential to reduce the risk of demographic collapse is possible, but even with a captive brood program, the populations can fall to quite low numbers. Most of the methods used to produce the fish are adequately described in the proposal. There are experiments imbedded in the work elements 1) assess and compare the effects of the natural and accelerated pre-smolt rearing; 2) assess and compare the effects of the freshwater and saltwater post-smolt rearing; 6) assess the effectiveness of matrix spawning protocols and success at meeting performance benchmarks. Project monitoring and evaluation is performed under the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan (LSRCP). Specific details are not presented, but the general framework appears adequate. The sponsors have a long history of collecting data on juvenile and adult salmon so there is no reason to question the reliability of the data. The project sponsors have produced useful reports in the past, and it is likely they will in the future. On this basis this it is reasonable to consider continuation of this project; however, there are several elements that need clarification, so the ISRP recommends a response. First, a number of statements in the technical and scientific background raise questions for the ISRP. Sponsors state that "Program success is dependent on achievement of adequate survival, growth, maturation, gamete viability, smolt-to-adult survival and reproductive success," this is followed by eight assumptions that the project operates under, followed by "These became the benchmarks for success of the Captive Broodstock Program and are the targets against which we have been and will evaluate the program." The next sentence states "The Grande Ronde Basin Chinook Salmon Captive Broodstock Program was developed to achieve a sustained annual return of at least 150 wild Chinook salmon to each program stream (150,000 smolts and a smolt-to-adult return rate, SAR, of 0.1%)." It is not clear from the first statement and eight assumptions that an increase in the abundance of natural-origin adult Chinook is a goal of this project, and the ISRP believes it should be. The second statement implies that a sustained production of wild fish is a goal; however, since the 150,000 smolts with an SAR of 0.1% is a goal from fish production, it is not clear how these are being called wild Chinook salmon. The critical benefit to the focal species would be an increase in the numbers of natural-origin adults in the treatment stream, not just increases in the numbers of hatchery-origin adults. So, sponsors need to: 1. Identify the method by which they will determine the demographic benefit to the focal species – in terms of an increase in the numbers of natural-origin adults. Second, in the December 19, 2003 Review of Blue Mountain and Mountain Snake Province Captive Propagation Programs: Response to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the sponsors of the Grande Ronde project identified that they planned 5 generations of captive broodstock that would take 19 years to complete a full data collection and analysis. The sponsors, however, both in explicitly that document, and implicitly in their current proposal by failing to identify a termination date, indicate they will continue to use captive broodstock technology until they return sufficient adults to the treatment streams. The ISRP recommended in the review of the December 19, 2003 document that they should adhere to the 19-year experimental design. Consequently, sponsors need to: 2. Outline the 19 year experiment identified in the December 19, 2003 document and clarify when juvenile (parr) collections are no longer needed to support that experiment; 3. If that time frame is already passed provide justification for additional collections; 4. Identify the timeframe for providing a reasonable demographic benefit to the focal species or the technology would be judged ineffective.

ISRP FINAL REVIEW (Aug 31, 2006)

Recommendation: Fundable in part (Qualified)

NPCC comments: Fundable-in-part to continue and complete the captive propagation experiment. The project has already continued to collect parr beyond the timeframe that was initially envisioned. Additional parr collections do not seem justified. This project should be limited to raising the parr they now have collected, and completing the envisioned experiment. The ISRP recommendation is Qualified in that the design of the final analysis needs to be capable of quantifying the demographic effect of natural spawning by captive propagated and supplementation adults on natural production in the next generation. Several concerns were raised in the preliminary ISRP review. First it was not clear from the proposal that an increase in the abundance of natural-origin adult Chinook is a goal of this project, and the ISRP response stated that the ISRP believes it should be. Second, the proposal implies that a sustained production of wild fish is a goal; however, since the 150,000 smolts with an SAR of 0.1% is a goal from fish production, the ISRP response stated that "it is not clear how these fish are being called wild Chinook salmon," and that "the critical benefit to the focal species would be an increase in the numbers of natural-origin adults in the treatment stream, not just increases in the numbers of hatchery-origin adults.” The preliminary ISRP review then asked the sponsors to address four questions. The following is an assessment of the quality of their responses. 1. Identify the method by which they will determine the demographic benefit to the focal species – in terms of an increase in the numbers of natural-origin adults. Their response was very thorough: "We are using a variety of approaches to assess the natural-origin demographic benefit provided by natural spawning hatchery fish, including: comparing demographic trends … comparing pre- and post-treatment smolts produced per parent in all three treatment streams." 2. Outline the 19-year experiment identified in the December 19, 2003 document and clarify when juvenile (parr) collections are no longer needed to support that experiment. They did that, but explained "we continued to collect parr because we had not met our goal of a consistent return of 150 adults spawning in nature and had problems with the experimental component that required more brood years of parr collection for captive rearing (see below)." Given that this is an experiment, this seems unjustified. We emphasize that a demographic benefit from this program is yet to be demonstrated. On that basis, we encourage the co-managers to seriously consider the option of phasing out the captive propagation program in the Lostine system, per the discussion in the response to the ISRP. 3. If that timeframe is already passed provide justification for additional collections. The response, "We had not achieved our threshold annual goal of a consistent return of 150 adults spawning in nature in the Catherine Creek and Grande Ronde River populations at the time we collected the 1999 brood year parr (Table 1)." Sponsors have passed the timeframe for collecting parr for their experimental evaluation of captive propagation and continue to collect parr, albeit at a reduced number. The rational for continuing the collections is that the target populations have not yet reached the abundance thresholds decided upon by the co-managers. A decision on the efficacy of the captive propagation technology will be decided in 2014 after the data collection and analysis from the 19-year experimental phase is concluded. Further, the ISRP encourages the timely reporting of the demographic response of the target populations as the data becomes available. 4. Identify the timeframe for providing a reasonable demographic benefit to the focal species or the technology would be judged ineffective. Their response was straightforward: "We plan to follow the schedule of the 19 year experiment to determine whether the Captive Broodstock program can increase the number of natural spawners." That is encouraging. The authors, however, did add the following: "At that time, we will have adequate data to assess relative reproductive success of the Captive Broodstock F1 generation, trends in total population abundance, recruits:spawner ratios, total adults spawning in nature and abundance of natural origin adults and compare these within streams in pre- vs. post-supplementation comparisons and with unsupplemented reference streams. The evaluation of the reproductive success of the Captive Broodstock offspring will also be done genetically by identifying the F2 generation on the spawning grounds. We will also measure and compare variables such as survival, size and age at maturation, sex ratio, migration and spawn timing, and spawning distribution." The ISRP concern is that the DNA pedigree analysis should provide the way to conduct the evaluation – but it not sufficiently clear what is to really be done. Because that information is the key to determining the real level of success of the captive propagation experiment underway, that methodology could/should be explained in detail.