Washington’s current tag recovery program in the Lower Columbia River (LCR) is centered on the recovery of coded wire tags (CWT) from fisheries and escapement sampling, and development of escapement estimates primarily for Chinook salmon.  Deficiencies have been identified for the program including: 1) low escapement sample rates, 2) non-representative escapement sampling, 3) incomplete escapement sampling, and 4) bias in estimates of total escapement.  This is particularly true for coho salmon for which very limited escapement sampling occurs.  In addition, the application of Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags has increased from 20,000 in 1988 to over 2,000,000 in 2009.  Currently, 2% of the returning adult salmon and steelhead passing Bonneville Dam (BON) are PIT tagged.  It is natural extension of the current CWT recovery program to include PIT tag recoveries.  The goals of this propo... sal are: 1) to address high priority deficiencies in the CWT program, 2) to expand Washington’s LCR CWT program to include a recovery program for all tags, including PIT tags, and marks sampled in fisheries and escapement programs, 3) to provide point and interval estimates for recovered Pit and CWT tags by stratum when sample sizes are sufficient, 4) to have a single framework for tag recovery and salmon escapement monitoring programs, to report on Viable Salmonid Population (VSP) metrics for Chinook and coho salmon, and 5) to make this information available to policy makers, planners, managers, and others.  This proposal builds on the existing framework and infrastructure of the current CWT recovery program along other state, federal, and locally funded fisheries and escapement sampling programs coordinated by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.   Show More