The response adequately addresses the ISRP's response request, especially to provide a summary of results to date. The material provided in the revised Major Accomplishments section now gives a clearer picture of the status of the program. Much needs to be done to provide strong results (to make up for a slow, at best, start).

The proponents also discuss the need for additional resources to complete a joint summary captive propagation report with ODFW, NOAA, and perhaps other co-managers. A summary of past efforts to produce captive reared spring Chinook adults is needed and essential. The joint summary report should complete the adaptive management for the project and identify the broader basinwide implications of the research, which will have been conducted for nearly two decades at the completion of field collections and genetic analysis.

The ISRP believes there are several critical challenges to using this technology as a salmon recovery strategy. One is deciding at what point (the trigger) in the decline in population abundance should captive propagation begin. A second is to identify the time needed to get infrastructure in place to make a difference in the population’s recovery trajectory. A third would address what geographic scale of intervention is required to support the metapopulation structure of an ESU with 31 populations. If all populations are in serious decline, how many need to be incorporated into captive propagation? If only a few are in serious decline, is intervention justified?

The ISRP requests that the proponents provide a more detailed summary of the results-to-date in a few succinct tables and text narrative. Summary: This project remains an important one within the overall basin’s investment aimed at understanding how artificial production might be used to assist salmon recovery efforts. The project’s overall goals about comparing different captive rearing and release methods seems to have gotten lost amid the details of on site sampling and genetic parentage analysis. Linkages from methods to analyses to the overall project goals and potential applications need to be more clearly stated. One of the charges to the ISRP is to produce a retrospective report for Council (which also serves the Governors, state legislatures, and Congress). To complete that task, the ISRP needs a succinct summary of the material in the cumulative annual reports. Toward that end, the proposal needs to include clearer statements, tables, and figures about progress to date than it does in its present form. Eventually a report from the proponents to Council is also needed that compares the captive rearing methods (strategies) in the Salmon River rearing and releasing adults, with the Grande Ronde rearing to adults/spawning and producing smolts for release. This is one of the few adaptive management experiments in the basin. The report needs to compare the methods and evaluate the efficacy of the strategy/methods. The report needs to compare the methods and evaluate the efficacy of the strategy/methods. The report should be evaluated by the ISAB and ISRP as a report to the Council on an independent conclusion on the scope of the benefit (and cost) of using this approach to rescue populations that have extremely small numbers of spawning adults. Reviewers were surprised that proponents were not carefully looking at the smolt-to-adult work, especially considering that the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe had a smolt trap and were taking tissue samples. They should collaborate. 1. Purpose, Significance to Regional Programs, Technical Background, and Objectives Adequately described. 2. History: Accomplishments, Results, and Adaptive Management Proponents assert that the hatchery propagation and M&E of spawning components have been completed; however, this section is deficient in adequately presenting results to date. The proposal provides many details on its internal protocols, but consistently lacks overview tables or statements summarizing results to date. The proposal would benefit from a clearer presentation of results to date, steps to be taken over the remaining timeline for the project, and how the conclusions of the project will be utilized by sponsors and other fisheries managers in the Columbia River Basin. A succinct set of tables and narrative text explaining the outcome of this experiment is needed. Additionally, the comparison of captive rearing methods (strategies) – Salmon River rearing and releasing adults, Grande Ronde rearing to adults/spawning and producing smolts for release – is one of the few adaptive management experiments in the basin. A report comparing the methods and evaluating the efficacy of the strategy/methods is needed. That report should be evaluated by the ISAB as a report to Council (states and feds) on an independent conclusion on the scope of benefit (and cost) of relying on this approach to rescue populations that have extremely small numbers of spawning adults. 3. Project Relationships, Emerging Limiting Factors, and Tailored Questions for Type of Work (Hatchery, RME, Tagging) Adequately described. 4. Deliverables, Work Elements, Metrics, and Methods Adequately described.

The project’s goal is to evaluate ‘one’ strategy, captive rearing, and the last remaining and most telling piece of the evaluation is the parentage analysis to estimate contribution (adult-to-adult).  Although the proponents concur that comparison of Idaho’s captive-rearing strategy to Oregon’s captive-broodstock strategy is tantamount for Chinook in the region, it is not possible until the evaluation of each strategy is completed independently.

We have rewritten the executive summary and major accomplishments sections to more accurately and clearly reflect the connections between methods, analyses, project goals, and potential applications.  We have provided a more detailed summary of results-to-date in the form of both tables and text that are available at this time (see revised ‘Major Accomplishments’ section).  We felt these results were best described succinctly as figures, so this information was summarized in the proposal presentation; which unfortunately not all reviewers were able to witness.  In addition; 1) project activities and personnel have changed over time, 2) data were not entered into a database, and 3) results were only reported annually and not summarized.  Therefore, a great deal of compilation and summarization of multiple years of results still needs to be completed.  This summarization and remaining sampling and genetic analyses will be completed over the next four years and is the impetus for this proposal submittal.  A succinct summary of the material in cumulative annual reports will be included in a completion report for the project.

Again, we would be pleased to cooperate with Oregon to complete a report comparing Idaho’s captive rearing methods in the Salmon River (rearing to adults and releasing adults), with the Oregon’s captive broodstock methods in the Grande Ronde River (rearing to adults/spawning and producing smolts for release).  We feel the captive-rearing methods and techniques have advanced considerably and should be seriously considered as a viable approach to boost severely depressed populations with naturally spawning adults.

We considered utilizing smolt-to-adult estimates via parentage genetic analysis as a potential means to evaluate contribution of captive-reared Chinook.  However, we decided that determining the contribution of natural spawning captive-reared adults to natural/wild adult returns served as a more ‘definitive’ evaluation of the efficacy of captive rearing as a legitimate conservation strategy.  Furthermore, sampling of adult returns at the East Fork Salmon River trap is likely more representative sampling of Chinook likely to be progeny of captive-reared adults.  And lastly, utilizing both evaluation tools, smolt-to-adult and adult-to-adult evaluations were deemed cost prohibitive.  However, if additional funding for genetic analyses of smolt-to-adult samples were identified both evaluations could be performed and contrasted.  Lastly, our BPA COTR stated:  “resources associated with coordination with other agencies were not previously anticipated to the degree suggested by the ISRP and therefore an increased level of effort and additional funding would be required to be fully responsive”.

When the IDFG captive Chinook program was initiated in 1994, little was known about the full-term captive culture of Pacific salmon and relatively few programs existed to aid in the development of captive culture methodologies.  Since the inception of the program, project scientists have developed multiple techniques and methodologies that can be passed to fisheries professionals to help guide the future implementation of captive rearing and/or captive brood programs:

• Sourcing of founders (eggs, parr, anadromous adults)
• Fish health issues and implications
• Aquaculture risks/benefits
• Growth and maturation risks/benefits
• Post-release behavior and performance of cultures stocks

While project sponsors from both programs (ODFW, IDFG) have documented various levels of both failure and success in the investigation of respective forms of recovery strategies, the ultimate utility of these techniques will hinge on the ability and/or degree that each strategy is able to assist species/stocks that are at risk of short-term population extirpation.  Speaking on behalf of the Idaho program, scientists will have a clearer understanding of the program’s ability to contribute to “at risk” Chinook stocks when anadromous adults return (2010 through 2014) and are genetically sampled to determine origin.  Again, while a multitude of techniques/methodologies have been developed as a result of these investigations, the most important question to the program at this juncture is whether progeny from captive-reared Chinook adults released to spawn in the natural environment will return as anadromous adults 3-5 years later.

The ISRP’s inquiry as to how results from the IDFG project “will be utilized by sponsors and other fisheries managers in the Columbia River Basin” is a complex question that will ultimately be answered by individual agencies and fish managers based on a multitude of programmatic limitations (e.g. funding, degree of intervention, facility limitations) as well as species- and stock-specific needs of the target population.