COORDINATION
     INPMEP uses data from a variety of sources scattered across the portion of the Snake River drainage that is upstream of LGR and accessible to anadromous salmonids. Collection of these data requires coordination and cooperation among numerous agencies and projects, e.g. the the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the United States Forest Service (USFS), the Nez Perce Tribe (NPT), the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes (SBT), Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), and local stakeholder groups (e.g. county Soil and Water Conservation Districts).  Internal IDFG cooperators include the Idaho Supplementation Supplementation Studies (ISS, projects 198909800, 198909801, and 198909802), Chinook Captive Rearing Monitoring & Evaluation (1997-001-00), Lower Snake River Compensation Plan Evaluation,  and Steelhead Monitoring and Evaluation Studies (SMES, project 199005500)) as well as IDFG regional fisheries biologists and managers.  Coordination between all the cooperators is required to ensure that the most efficient allocation of crews both by time and area to minimize duplication of effort.  The INPMEP is reliant on both the ISS projects and the Captive Chinook Project to provide weir data and carcass collections in their sampling streams.  Juvenile densities from ISS screw traps and snorkeling sites also enhance the data collection both for density estimates and PIT tagging efforts.   Redd count information is provided to INNPMEP by all cooperators as well as counts completed by INPMEP crews during standard surveys for carcasses.
    Specific support of other projects is more in providing access to collected data.  We have developed a positive working relationship between all cooperators and data sharing is made available to all users because of the ISS and INPMEP online databases.  This ensures that the data collected between the cooperators is taken in a consistent fashion and reported in a timely manner.  Project data is uploaded to the Columbia Basin PIT tag database (PTAGIS) and is available via a link on StreamNet. This project also manages and maintains the long-term salmon and steelhead general parr monitoring (GPM) database and coordinates redd count surveys. These data track historical trends and current status of salmon and steelhead populations in Idaho, as well as populations of resident fishes, and provide information on physical stream habitat characteristics. Data generated by this project are used to assess annual migrations and the effect of the federal hydrosystem upon them. However, there are many other potential applications for INPMEP data. For example, GPM data have been used in recent status reviews of westslope cutthroat and bull trout. Indeed, the NPCC Clearwater Subbasin Inventory cites GPM as the most requested data by other agencies and consultants (p. 60).  

CURRENT STATUS
     Currently, INPMEP monitors the spring/summer Chinook salmon and steelhead trout populations in the Salmon, Clearwater, and other middle Snake tributaries.  Present project components include GPM, estimation of juvenile production, and measurement of escapement and spawning. Recent analyses of GPM trends in parr abundance across 11 generations showed that replacement for the Snake River spring/summer Chinook ESU occurred 20% of the time. To increase accuracy of smolt-to-adult-return (SAR) estimates for the basin, INPMEP personnel have developed techniques to accurately age returning adult Chinook and assign them to the appropriate migratory year. Ageing results for known-age fish were 98% accurate. Basin-wide data were used to develop a stock-recruitment relationship for the aggregate stock. Project personnel have worked to increase numbers of wild steelhead parr tagged annually. Since 1999, project personnel have tagged over 37,000 individuals. During the 2006 contract year, INMEP will continue the past field work including snorkeling GPM sites, redd surveys, carcass collections, and wilderness streams Steelhead PIT tagging.  
     This year we will emphasize determining age/sex bias in our sampling programs and also begin developing fish/redd estimates to use in calibrating abundance estimates for individual populations.  Our snorkel surveys are integral in fish management for all agencies in Idaho and we are interested developing unbiased estimators for stream snorkeling.  We will continue the current work of summarizing juvenile densities and updating the aggregate level stock-recruit analysis for Idaho Snake River spring/summer Chinook salmon.  This work will lay the foundation for developing adult and juvenile population estimators that have an estimable bias and precision as defined in our current BPA 2007-2009 proposal.  These estimators are the foundation for monitoring anadromous populations in Idaho and are required to determine stock status and recovery for Snake River Spring/Summer Chinook salmon.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES
     Within the overall goal of INPMEP, we would like to answer several broad questions: What is the production of wild and natural juvenile anadromous salmonids in Idaho? How and why does this production vary? What are the numbers of spawning adults returning each year? How are adult returns structured across the landscape and in time? The answers should link salmon life stages in time and space, thus providing an understanding of population persistence. Project objectives and tasks are directed towards answering these questions by evaluating models and testing hypotheses. Results should be applicable to management and should identify key gaps in the data necessary for conservation.

Objective 1. Correlate parr density of spring/summer Chinook to counts of the parental generation and the subsequent smolt migration. The intent of this objective is to describe relationships on a basin-wide scale and for individual populations where possible. This objective examines the productivity of Idaho's habitat for anadromous salmonids. Analysis of patterns in the data may suggest controlling factors. We will consider the effects of population-level and inter-annual variation.

Objective 2. Measure 2006 adult escapement and describe age structure of the wild/natural spawning run of spring/summer Chinook in the Salmon River basin. The first part of the objective relates back to Objective 1. The second part is essential for the completion of Objective 3. Additionally, this information will help confirm or refute ICBTRT population delineations. We hypothesize that several factors may affect accuracy of estimated age composition.

Objective 3. Investigate basin-wide aggregate life cycle survival rates for wild and naturally produced spring/summer Chinook salmon populations above LGR from 1990 to the present. Objective 3 links life stages through time. This objective considers stage-structured constraints on salmon populations and provides a means of evaluating ocean and hydrosystem effects that influence Snake River anadromous salmonids as a unit. Other IDFG personnel are assessing finer-scale effects on passage survival, so this project will not duplicate their efforts. Methods will duplicate those reported previously in annual reports submitted by this project.

Objective 4. Increase precision of aggregate SAR estimates of wild/natural steelhead that spawn above LGR. This objective provides support for the Comparative Survival Study analysis of downstream passage issues. This function will be assumed by Steelhead Monitoring & Evaluation Studies (project 1990-055-00) after 2006.