Title: Policy/Technical Involvement and Planning in the Yakima/Klickitat Fisheries Project

A. Abstract

The Yakima/Klickitat Fisheries Project (YKFP) is a long-term, co-managed, multi-species, interdisciplinary project designed to restore anadromous fish populations to the Yakima and Klickitat watersheds by artificial production and strategic habitat actions.  A key science component of the YKFP is testing whether supplementation of upper Yakima spring chinook salmon can be used to increase harvest and natural production while maintaining the long-term genetic fitness of the fish population being supplemented and keeping adverse genetic and ecological interactions with non-target species or stocks within acceptable limits. The scientific uncertainty associated with supplementation is arguably the most important fisheries management uncertainty in the Pacific Northwest, and the information that will be generated in the Yakima watershed has the potential to be used throughout the Columbia watershed. With a project of the magnitude of the YKFP, technical and policy decisions must balance stewardship, utilization, legal, and scientific values and adapt to new information to be successful.  We propose to continue involvement of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) in the policy and technical oversight of the YKFP.  The co-managers of the resource (WDFW and Yakama Nation (YN)) will meet regularly and make collaborative decisions using adaptive management and risk management.  When appropriate, decision analysis tools will be used or developed to facilitate transparent, systematic, and optimal decisions.  Tools that may be used or developed include Bayesian belief networks, loop analyses, spreadsheet models (e.g., EDT, AHA), statistical power analyses, and individual-based models.  This proposal funds WDFW participation in YKFP technical management and administration, technical review, environmental compliance documentation, and report and publication writing. Most of the technical aspects of the YKFP are addressed in Monitoring and Evaluation Project 1995-063-25.

B. Technical and/or scientific background

Salmon and steelhead populations in the Yakima Basin and throughout the Columbia Basin are far below historic levels.  Historically, 500,000-900,000 adult salmon and steelhead returned to the Yakima Basin annually and now only a fraction of that returns.  For example, an average of 200,000 spring chinook salmon returned to the Yakima Basin prior to 1800, but declined to an average of fewer than 3,500 fish annually from 1982-1999.  Summer chinook, sockeye, and endemic coho salmon are extinct in the Yakima Basin.  Steelhead are listed as threatened and fall chinook are depressed.  There are many factors that have contributed to these declines, but relatively few tools are available to restore, enhance, and reintroduce these fish.  

The Yakima Subbasin Plan Supplement (YSPS) identified three key factors that currently limit the biological potential of Yakima Basin salmonids: 1) habitat, 2) population performance and response, and 3) institutional efficiency.  To address these limiting factors, the YSPS recommends “A well-coordinated effort that pursues and achieves the longer term systemic solutions strategically throughout this basin, while also accomplishing near-term localized project actions is critical to achieve the YSPS’s Vision.  Systemic solutions should integrate habitat strategies with ongoing and new supplementation efforts to reach the Plan’s goals.”  It is clear that coordinated, strategic, adaptive, balanced, and science-based management will be required in order to succeed.

There are many challenges associated with managing and studying natural resources.  Balancing factors such as 1) long and short-term benefits, 2) different values within and between cultures, 3) institutional policies and legal agreements, 4) willingness to proceed with uncertainty, and 5) importance of science versus fishery benefits, can result in heated discussion and negotiation.  Optimal (e.g., systematic, transparent, repeatable, and adaptable) approaches can be used to help forge the best balance of benefits and costs.  Tools that may be used or developed include Bayesian belief networks, loop analyses, spreadsheet models (e.g., EDT, AHA), statistical power analyses, and individual-based models.  These tools can be used to predict risks, appropriate levels of harvest, habitat management prioritization, and outcomes of habitat and artificial propagation actions.

The Yakima/Klickitat Fisheries Project (YKFP) was formed to restore and enhance salmonids in the Yakima Basin and to provide information about the efficacy of supplementation that could be used throughout the Columbia Basin.  With a project of this magnitude, there are many management decisions that are made that integrate and balance stewardship, utilization, legal, and scientific values.  The Yakama Nation and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are responsible for co-managing the natural resources in the Yakima Basin.  Policy representatives of these two agencies interact regularly with technical representatives to forge sound management decisions that guide the YKFP.  Management decisions are made within the frameworks of adaptive management and risk management.

While large-scale habitat actions pose the lowest risks to restoration of depressed stocks, they are also the most difficult for managers to implement.  Artificial propagation is the most common tool used by managers to conserve and enhance salmon.  Hatcheries have been used as the primary tool to mitigate for the losses of salmon in the Columbia Basin.  However, naturally produced salmon have continued to decline despite large releases of hatchery fish.  This decline in abundance has caused many Evolutionary Significant Units of salmon and steelhead to be listed for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.  Traditional hatchery operations have been successful at producing fish for harvest, but may actually harm naturally produced fish through ecological, genetic, facility, and harvest interactions.  

The YKFP is designed to determine whether it is possible to change hatchery practices so that adjacent natural spawning populations of salmon receive biological benefits from a hatchery program.  The project is also examining whether these same hatchery practices can be managed to limit deleterious impacts on non-enhanced fish populations.  More specifically, the YKFP is testing whether “artificial propagation [can be used] to increase natural production while maintaining the long term fitness of the target population, and keeping the ecological and genetic impacts on non-target populations within specified biological limits” (RASP 1992).  In addition, increasing harvest opportunities for tribal and non-tribal fishers is also part of the overall goal.  In short, the YKFP is attempting to quantify the ecological and genetic benefits and costs of supplementation.

In order to test whether supplementation works, in the Yakima Basin or elsewhere, at least four major questions must be answered:

1) Can integrated hatchery programs be used to increase long-term natural production?
2) Can integrated hatchery programs limit genetic impacts to non-target chinook populations?
3) Can integrated hatchery programs limit ecological impacts to non-target species or taxa ?
4) Does supplementation increase harvest opportunities?

It is our goal to answer these questions.

C. Rationale and significance to regional programs

Most plans to enhance, conserve, or restore salmon in the Columbia Basin, including the 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program (FWP), have identified hydropower, hatcheries, habitat, and harvest as the key components affecting salmon and the importance of science to guide management decisions.  The YKFP is addressing all four of these “H’s” in the Yakima Basin, although dams for irrigation water storage represent the hydropower component.  In addition, there is a strong science component to the YKFP and a strong commitment to adaptive management.  The YKFP provides funding for a co-managed policy and technical working group to balance competing values and oversee and integrate the newest science.  This working group helps to prioritize actions and to promote efficiency to achieve the goals to conserve, restore, and enhance anadromous fish and the ecosystems upon which they depend.  This working group has been used as a model that can be replicated throughout the Columbia Basin.  The YKFP is specifically identified as a high priority within the Yakima Basin and is consistent with the 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program, and addresses key uncertainties identified in the Biological Opinion.  In particular, the YKFP is heavily invested in implementing and testing “cutting edge” artificial propagation techniques as a means to increase natural production and harvest.

To our knowledge, all major reviews of hatchery programs have identified the scientific uncertainties associated with the costs and benefits associated with hatchery origin fish spawning in natural environments (NRC 1996, ISAB 2003-03, APRE Council Document 2004-17, Williams 2006).  In addition, most plans also indicate that integrated hatchery programs should be treated as experiments and should operate with clear objectives, appropriate risk management, sufficient research, monitoring, and evaluation, and within an adaptive management framework (NRC 1996, FWP 2000, ISAB 2002-03, APRE Council Document 2004-17).  For example, the FWP 2000 states that, “Artificial production must be implemented within an experimental, adaptive management design that includes an aggressive program to evaluate the risks and benefits and address scientific uncertainties.” The YKFP was designed and is operated to collect the necessary information to evaluate artificial production programs and to use the information to make management decisions (e.g. adaptive management).

The monitoring and evaluation activities of the YKFP were determined by consensus of the scientists from the Yakama Nation (YN) and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).  Project M & E activities have been subjected to rigorous scientific and technical review by the YKFP's Science/Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) and the Monitoring/Implementation Planning Team (MIPT).  STAC is responsible for the conceptual design of the project's M & E program, and MIPT must transform the conceptual design into  implementable tasks identified in this agreement.

Yakima Subbasin Plan

The YKFP partially or wholly addresses the three key limiting factors in the Yakima Subbasin Plan Supplement (page 4): 1) habitat, 2) population performance and response, and 3) institutional efficiency.  Section 3.2.2, Page 26, Table 8 identifies “Objectives and the Implementable Strategies” of population performance and response.  The objectives are:

1) Restore existing populations to their former range, maintain genetic, and spatial diversity.
2) Improve understanding of population dynamics and the negative and positive effects of artificial population management (production hatchery, supplementation programs, physical transfer of fish).
3) Manage appropriate populations for harvest and all populations for sustainability over the long term.
4) Reduce competitive effects with non-native and hatchery reared fish.
5) Restore extirpated populations.

Strategies include:

1) Continue YKFP supplementation experiments and habitat restoration.
2) Monitor population productivity, abundance, and life history and habitat restoration.
3) Continue and enhance the YKFP programs for spring and fall chinook, coho reintroduction, kelt reconditioning and others.

Furthermore, Page 42, Section 3.4 states, “Institutional strategies should also integrate ongoing and new supplementation strategies. Coordinating habitat restoration and protection actions in tandem or in sequence with supplementation strategies is advisable to achieve desired biological, cultural, and economic benefits.”
Section 3.3 addresses the hatchery programs and the YKFP
Section 3.3.3 addresses the management of the YKFP
Section 3.3.4 addresses YKFP research.

The YKFP is highlighted as one of the most important strategies to address the key limiting factors in the subbasin plan (see above).  On Page 3, the 7th  of 8 guiding principles for the Yakima Subbasin Plan states, “The science and art of restoring ecosystems is still evolving; therefore, programs and actions must be monitored and evaluated for effectiveness and may be altered as necessary.” The YKFP uses new information to adaptively manage the project. However it is also important to recognize that the learning benefits provided by the YKFP transcend the Yakima Subbasin. One of the original intents of the YKFP was to generate information about critical uncertainties so that the information could be used throughout the region.

F. Proposal biological objectives, work elements, and methods

We intend to continue to ascertain whether new artificial production techniques, coupled with strategic habitat actions, can be used to increase harvest and natural production of spring chinook, fall chinook, coho salmon and steelhead trout while maintaining the long-term genetic fitness of the fish population being supplemented and keeping adverse genetic and ecological interactions with non-target species or stocks within acceptable limits.  To this end, this contract will continue to provide the WDFW portion of the policy and technical oversight of the YKFP.  The co-managers of the resource (WDFW and YN) will meet regularly and make collaborative decisions using adaptive management. Much of the technical aspects of the YKFP are addressed in Monitoring and Evaluation Project 1995-063-25.

The quantitative objectives that we have identified for the project are described in other YKFP documents.   Achievement of these objectives will be coordinated and managed by the Policy and Technical Work Group supported by this contract, but actual implementation will be conducted through other contracts.  The work elements and methods that the Policy and Technical Work Group use to achieve these quantitative objectives are the same for each quantitative objective so the quantitative objectives are lumped into one overarching objective.

Objective 1 – Achieve the quantitative objectives identified by the YKFP, which collectively will increase long-term natural production, limit genetic impacts to non-target chinook populations, limit ecological impacts to non-target populations, increase harvest opportunities, and provide scientific information that will be used to address critical management issues.

The co-managers are committed to balancing the current and future benefit/costs of fish resources in the Yakima Basin.  This includes enhancing and conserving habitat conditions for long-term benefits, reaping current harvest opportunities through supplementation, and striving towards containing undesirable genetic and ecological impacts.  To this end, the co-managers have agreed to a number of quantitative objectives and have committed to monitoring the results within an adaptive management framework.  Success of the YKFP will be judged based on the achievement of these objectives.