This one-year contract covers Year #2 (2010-2011) of the Basinwide Supplementation Evaluation project (2009-009-00).  The overarching goal of this project is to initiate a series of actions which support recommendations of the Ad Hoc Supplementation Workgroup (AHSWG) for a basinwide evaluation of the long term effects of hatchery supplementation on productivity of naturally spawning anadromous salmonid populations in the Columbia River basin (AHSWG 2008).  These actions will involve projects to acquire and evaluate more, and more reliable (accurate and precise), information on trends in abundance and productivity of supplemented salmon and steelhead populations, relative reproductive success (RRS) of naturally spawning salmon of natural origin versus hatchery origin within supplemented populations.  Natural origin (NO) fish are defined as ones which are the product of a natural spawning that occurred in a stream.  Hatchery origin (HO) fish are defined as those which are derived from artificially fertilized eggs which, generally speaking, were then incubated and the fry reared in a hatchery for some period.  (HO fish could also include those which were artificially spawned and released as early as fertilized eggs or hatchlings, although this management option is infrequently used.)

The contract for Year #2 (4/1/2010 to 3/31/2011) includes four specific Project Objectives:
Project Objective #1:  to use a pair of Dual-Frequency Identification Sonars (DIDSONs) to obtain an estimate of the 2010 natural spawning escapement of spring Chinook population in the upper basin of the Klickitat River (upstream of the Castile Falls complex).
Project Objective #2:  publish/present descriptions of the Fukll Likelihood Mark-Recapture Model (developed in Year #1 of the Project), incorporates tag loss (including the uncertainty of the tag loss estimate) into the inference for population abundance based on mark-recapture data.
Project Objective #3:  to perform a relative reproductive success (RRS) study of NO versus HO salmon in a population associated with an ongoing supplementation monitoring and evaluation (M&E) program for which tissue samples have been collected but for which genetic analysis and estimation of RRS remains unfunded (Johnson Creek - tributary to the East Fork of the South Fork of the Salmon River, Idaho)
Project Objective #4:  to perform RRS studies of NO versus HO salmon in multiple populations which were reintroduced following extirpation of the native population, including spring Chinook in the Hood River, Lolo Creek (Clearwater River), Newsome Creek (South Fork Clearwater River), and Lookingglass Creek (Grande Ronde River), and coho salmon in the Wenatchee River.