The RME Workgroup comments agreed with three project BiOp RPA associations (50.5, 62.5 and 64.2), questioned one (50.7) and suggested that three be deleted (55.8, 63.2, 64.1).  For 50.7 that asked to confirm that the scope of work proposed is for 100% marking of fish (visible or non visible) and that if the project involved marking fish for the hatchery, that we specify the hatchery name and populations affected.  The hatchery stocks are listed below for both spring/summer Chinook salmon and steelhead.  Responses to the three RPAs suggested for deletion are also provided below. 

 50.7- Fund marking of hatchery releases from Action Agencies funded facilities to enable monitoring of hatchery-origin fish in natural spawning areas and the assessment of status of wild populations. (Annually) 

Response:  BPA project will permanently genetically mark all hatchery spring/summer Chinook salmon and steelhead in the Snake River basin (Idaho, Oregon and Washington).  These populations are summarized in Table 1 and 2 along with the number of broodstock spawned in 2008 and 2009. 

 Table 1.  Total number of Snake River steelhead hatchery broodstock sampled in 2008 and 2009.  *Early egg-takes were missed.  **ODFW hatcheries were not sampled in 2008.

 Table 2.  Total number of Snake River Chinook salmon hatchery broodstock sampled in 2008 and 2009. 

 55.8-Evaluate new tagging technologies for use in improving the accuracy and assessing delayed or indirect hydro effects on juvenile or adult fish.

Response:  It appears that the new tagging technology that RPA 55.8 references primarily involves acoustic tags.  The Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking (POST) program is a BPA funded project (2003-114-00) that is developing electronic tagging technology and methods to determine delayed or indirect effects of hydro passage by tracking salmon and steelhead in the estuary below Bonneville Dam and the ocean environment off the Pacific coast.  While our current project goals do not include sampling hatchery salmon and steelhead in these areas, it easy to see how PBT technology ultimately could be used to address many of the same types of questions that acoustic tag technology is attempting to address.  These questions are outlined on the POST website (http://www.coml.org/projects/pacific-ocean-shelf-tracking-project-post) and includes:

• ·         Do different salmon stocks form stock-specific aggregations at sea, or do they share common migration pathways and foraging areas? If such aggregations or pathways occur, where are the boundaries and how long do salmon remain in these areas?
• ·         Do distributions and migration patterns fluctuate with annual and long-term changes in ocean productivity, such as spring bloom cycles and El Niño/La Niña conditions?
• ·         How do different salmon species respond to changes in ocean conditions?
• ·         What are the winter movements and habitat usage of juvenile salmon?
• ·         What differences exist between the movement patterns and habitat use of wild and hatchery salmon?
• ·         Do shelf migration behaviors correlate with changes in annual stock success?
• ·         How do distribution and habitat use differ among species and stocks?
• ·         Is there stock-specific, life-stage specific or location-specific mortality in the ocean?

The hatchery offspring that are genetically tagged as part of our project represents all of the Snake River hatchery steelhead and spring/summer Chinook salmon produced each year and  roughly 50% of the entire production of hatchery steelhead and spring/summer Chinook salmon that migrate out of the Columbia River basin annually. 

 63.2- Determine the effect that implemented hatchery reform actions have on the recovery of targeted salmon and steelhead populations.

Response:  The effectiveness of hatchery reform measures will require monitoring genetic divergence between hatchery and wild stocks and making assessments of hatchery straying.

For integrated hatchery programs, actions will be implemented to minimize genetic divergence between the hatchery broodstock and the wild population and to maximize the proportion of natural influence (PNI).  This project can provide annual estimates of the degree of genetic divergence between every hatchery stock within the Snake River basin and associated wild stocks.  Successfully managing segregated hatchery programs will require enhancing harvest opportunities and minimizing straying between hatchery and wild populations.  Parentage Based tagging (PBT) of hatchery stocks in the Snake River basin will allow managers to more efficiently evaluate the effects of different release strategies (where and when fish are released, size and age at release, etc.) on increasing harvest and minimizing straying.  We will demonstrate through a paired coded-wire tag (CWT) and PBT recovery experiment, as part of existing hatchery evaluations in Idaho, that PBT technology can provide the same information as CWT (information on stock and age) for harvest evaluations.  This project’s initial goals are also to demonstrate that any hatchery adult that has found to have strayed into natural production areas (either collected alive or as a carcass) could be sampled and its sex, stock and exact age be determined.  For hatchery steelhead in the upper Salmon River basin, we also intend to determine whether straying adults were from an on-site versus off-site juvenile release.  In the near future, with the completion of a collaborative hatchery rearing and release database module, we should also be able to identify the release location of any hatchery steelhead collected/sampled in a wild production area in the upper Salmon River basin.

 55.8-Continue to estimate the relative reproductive success (RSS) of hatchery-origin salmon and steelhead compared to reproductive success of their natural-origin counterparts.

 Response:  Throughout the Snake River basin Chinook salmon and steelhead hatcheries will be implementing hatchery reform measures to support sustainable fisheries while conserving natural spawning populations.  For stocks designated to be part of integrated programs, effectiveness monitoring will be necessary to assess the reproductive contribution of hatchery fish spawning in the wild and the number of adult recruits produced per hatchery spawner.  In coordination with this project (2010-031-00), IDFG, Tribal and federal co-managers in the Snake River basin are currently collecting genetic samples from all natural and hatchery fish passed above weirs associated with specific hatchery programs.   Because single, standardized SNP genetic marker sets are being developed to address genetic issues for both wild and hatchery stocks, this program will be able to contribute hatchery parental genotypes to any RRS study throughout the Snake River basin.