Qualifications:

The ISRP recommends that the proponents describe their responses to the ISRP's comments and suggestions below in their upcoming annual report covering FY 2019 accomplishments.

1.      The proponents should perform the power analyses they suggest in their proposal to help guide their sampling efforts and to provide measures of precision for all estimates.

2.      The project should begin to build a "brood table" for natural origin salmonids and show these values in annual reports, e.g., total adult recruitment produced by natural spawners. This information is needed for the evaluation of abundance and productivity, two key VSP parameters.

3.      Describe any efforts being made to link fish identification from the CWT- and PIT-tagging programs with comparable data obtained by Parentage-Based Tagging.

Comment:

This proposal clearly explains why the project was initiated, how it relates to the overall coded-wire-tag (CWT) program, and why it remains a critical monitoring effort in the Columbia Basin. However, the Adaptive Management section contains statements that reductions in funding hampered WDFW's ability to achieve sample rates targets for some fisheries in 2013-2017, and that "if additional funding is not identified, it will be necessary to prioritize fisheries and reduce or eliminate sampling of some fisheries. ... It may be possible to shift sampling effort among fisheries occurring simultaneously to come closer to sample rate targets, but this is often not possible as fisheries may occur on different days or large distances apart. Fishery sampling of the treaty Indian fishery (Zone 6) was especially challenging in recent years due to increased landings of dressed (i.e., gutted) fish and lack of access to sample some tribal fish buyers. The issues encountered by samplers in Zone 6 may result in a biased sample of the CWTs, PIT tags and individual fish weights even if sample rates met the targets due to the need to sample different stocks in proportion to the catch composition. These potential sources of bias in Zone 6 create issues for estimating harvest by stock and in general decrease precision in management by WDFW and co-managers in the Columbia River basin. WDFW is currently attempting to restructure sampling in Zone 6 to account for these potential sources of error, but difficulties may continue." These concerns parallel concerns expressed in the PSMFC proposal involving CWT (1982-031-00). These funding issues and associated implications require further discussion and evaluationby the Basin's fisheries managers, the Council, and BPA. To be effective, these discussions should occur now, prior to the Basin's fall fisheries.

1. Objectives, Significance to Regional Programs, and Technical Background

The goals and objectives of the monitoring project are well defined and justified, including (1) estimate the number of PIT tags in Columbia River fisheries, (2) estimate CWT Chinook and coho salmon contributions to escapement count in Washington's lower Columbia tributaries as a means to support VSP status, (3) Chinook salmon escapement monitoring for the Toutle River, Upper Gorge, and Upper Columbia populations (including Hanford Reach), and (4) monitoring spawning escapement of coho salmon in key Washington populations below Bonneville Dam. Anticipated outcomes are expressed quantitatively as sampling rates and data standards to be achieved and maintained over the longer-term.This is a monitoring project that requires long-term continuity to evaluate fish status in relation to fisheries.

2. Results and Adaptive Management

Results from 2013-2017 are briefly presented in the proposal for (1) Chinook and coho salmon spawning in specific tributaries, including hatchery origin (HOR) and natural origin (NOR) spawners, (2) sport fisheries, (3) commercial fisheries, and (4) fall Chinook counts at Bonneville Dam. Origin (hatchery versus natural) is identified in the recreational catches (unmarked fish are released) and commercial catches, and spawning escapements. Harvest rates based on PIT-tag data are calculated despite some logistical and technological challenges to achieving a 20% sampling rate in the mainstem fisheries. The proponents have identified a plan to overcome these hurdles; measures of precision about estimates and assumptions should be provided when possible. Ultimately, data generated by this effort are used in agency reports that describe basic salmon population trends and harvests. The proponents should begin to use the population data to create "brood tables" which are key to development of stock-recruitment relationships and assessing stock productivity. Data and evaluations produced by this project are uploaded to the publicly accessible CWT database (RMIS). A comprehensive report for the 2010 season provides many details on the methods and results. The proponents have produced a series of publications on methods and data standards in addition to their annual reports.

WDFW recognizes the need to restructure sampling in Zone 6 to account for potential sources of error and bias because of increased landings of "dressed" fish and lack of access to sample some tribal fish buyers. WDFW is testing new methods of electronic data capture and transfer to databases. Stream surveys of coho salmon are being revised.

The proposal does not mention any effort directed toward linking fish identification data from the CWT- and PIT-tagging programs with data obtained by genetic (e.g., parentage-based tagging, PBT) or acoustic telemetry programs. A major recommendation from the Pacific Salmon Commission's expert panel review in 2005 (that motivated this project) was to develop a coordinated research and implementation plan, including integration of other genetic and electronic tagging tools/techniques. This integration could be particularly useful because, as noted in the proposal, exploitation rates of wild salmon in commercial fisheries stem from analysis of CWT hatchery salmon and the assumption that exploitation rates of wild salmon are the same as hatchery salmon.

3. Methods: Project Relationships, Work Types, and Deliverables

The proposal documents activities and methods in appropriate detail and makes good use of the published literature to justify assertions and support procedures. This project primarily serves a long-term monitoring and data sharing function. The proposal provides appropriate detail about the types of activities used to detect or recover CWT in samples of catches and escapements, and to estimate escapements and calculate harvest rate. There is a need to develop and describe integrated methods that can propagate uncertainty along the entire chain of computations to get final estimates with measures of uncertainty. On page 57 of the report, it states the need to "Consider a power analysis for important fishery management groups to ensure sufficient PIT tagging and sampling to meet management precision goals." This analysis should be completed immediately. We could not verify whether the statistical methods used for CWT analyses were standard or something different.

Some typos were noted in the caption to Table 1 of the 2018 report ("do NOT provide accurate pHOS estimates...") and values in Table 14 (commas misplaced or extraneous digits).