The Chinook Salmon and Steelhead Adult Abundance Monitoring project collects data for long term monitoring of trends in natural origin (wild) adult salmon escapement, spawner abundance, and productivity in the Secesh River in Idaho.  This project also includes the fast track Joseph Creek natural origin adult steelhead escapement monitoring project.  

The primary goal of the Secesh River portion of the project is for salmon population status monitoring, with a secondary goal of hatchery effectiveness monitoring.  Focal species under consideration is the threatened Snake River spring/summer chinook salmon.  Population status and trend monitoring of natural origin fish is used for effective population management, assessing effectiveness of conservation actions, viability, and recovery metric monitoring.  This project implements reasonable and prudent alternative (RPA) 50.6, 51.1, 62.5, 63.1, and 64.2 in the 2008 Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) Biological Opinion (NOAA Fisheries 2008).  The project further implements the Coordinated Anadromous Workshop (2010) regional research, monitoring, and evaluation (RM&E) strategies for Snake River basin spring/summer Chinook salmon by providing high precision estimates of adult salmon abundance in the Secesh River.  Finally, the project is consistent with the Salmon Subbasin Management Plan (Ecovista 2004) which identified the need for salmon abundance and productivity monitoring on wild populations.  

Salmon escapement, spawner abundance, and productivity data collection occurs in the Secesh River in the South Fork Salmon River in west central Idaho.  The Secesh River is the only stream in the entire Snake River basin where natural origin salmon escapement and productivity data are collected absent a hatchery supplementation program.  Salmon monitoring utilizes dual frequency identification sonar (DIDSON) technology to provide salmon escapement information on an annual basis.  The passive monitoring approach allows unimpeded upstream and downstream salmon passage and precludes incidental trapping and handling mortality of a listed species.  High accuracy and precision adult salmon escapement data has been provided by this project since 2004, with coefficient's of variation around the population estimates ranging from 3.9% to 10.8%.  Accurate abundance data is necessary to calculate derived performance measures such as smolt-to-adult returns, spawner-to spawner ratios, recruits per spawner, population growth rates (lambda) and population trends.

Natural origin escapement and productivity information from the Secesh River provides for supplementation program reference stream comparison.  Coordination occurs with Idaho Supplementation Studies (ISS), the Johnson Creek Artificial Propagation Enhancement program (JCAPE), and the northeast Oregon Hatchery project (NEOH) as the Secesh River represents a control/reference stream for those supplementation programs.  ISS studies will further complement this investigation as they routinely estimate juvenile emigrant abundance which can be used to develop recruit per spawner relationships and smolt-to-adult return rates via life cycle monitoring in the Secesh River.  The ISS project also collects scales and fin rays from salmon carcasses which allows fish ageing and determination of age at return from various brood years.  This provides data to determine productivity (progeny-per-parent ratios).  The Integrated Status and Effectiveness Monitoring project (ISEMP) in the South Fork Salmon River explicitly states a need for adult salmon escapement information in the Secesh River at the population level.  DIDSON escapement estimates will allow a comparison of the accuracy and precision of ISEMP project PIT tag array derived escapement estimates, and whether the arrays can provide acceptable population status monitoring data.  

The primary goal of the fast track Joseph Creek portion of the project is for natural origin steelhead escapement population status and trend monitoring.  Focal species under consideration is the threatened Snake River steelhead.  This project implements  reasonable and prudent alternative (RPA) 50.6 of the 2008 FCRPS Biological Opinion, and the Coordinated Anadromous Workshop (2010) regional research, monitoring, and evaluation (RM&E) strategies for Snake River basin steelhead.  This project also implements the Grande Ronde Subbasin Plan (Cat Tracks Wildlife Consulting 2004) which identified the need for status and trends in adult abundance for focal species and comparison of adult life history characteristics between hatchery and natural fish.

Steelhead escapement status monitoring will occur in Joseph Creek in the lower Grande Ronde River in Washington.  This project will use a resistance board weir to collect escapement data, determine hatchery:natural composition, age structure, progeny-to-parent productivity data, and validate/correlate existing index redd survey data to actual escapement via regression analysis.  Adult steelhead mark-recapture escapement estimates will be compared to ISEMP project PIT tag array escapement estimates.  This will allow a comparison of an independent escapement estimation method with the PIT tag array derived steelhead escapement estimate for the first time in the Snake River basin.