Background

The goal of the Yakama Nation Pacific Lamprey Project (YN PLP) is to restore natural production of Pacific lamprey in the Yakama Nation Ceded Lands, specifically,  the Wind, White Salmon, Little White Salmon, Klickitat, Yakama, Wenatchee, Methow, and Entiat river systems.  A small, but growing body of information now exists about lamprey abundance and distribution or limiting factors throughout the Ceded lands.  Since 2009, the Yakama Nation Pacific Lamprey Project (YN PLP) has performed field surveys in the White Salmon, Klickitat, Yakima, Wenatchee, Entiat and Methow subbasins and has documented juvenile Pacific lamprey throughout this geographic range, albeit in very low numbers. In many watersheds we have sampled, we now believe Pacific lamprey are either extirpated or "functionally" extirpated.  Specifically few, if any lamprey were found.  

One of the primary objectives that will continue over the next couple years is to survey key habitats collecting  baseline information that will be used to document long-term status and trend of these local populations and to develop long-term restoration strategies for each of the named subbasins.  Another key objective within this time frame will be to continue evaluating potential supplementation practices, including artificial propagation of juveniles and translocation of adult lampreys.  This latter objective is important in developing key management tools to help re-establish or supplement natural populations in selected watersheds.  

Over the next year (2014 contract period, March 1, 2014 - February 28, 2015)  the YN PLP will continue focusing efforts in program development, regional coordination and surveying key habitats in the White Salmon, Yakima, and Wenatchee and Methow subbasins for lamprey presence / absence and relative abundance, distribution and identification of potential "threats" (primary limiting factors).  We will also continue to establish and survey long-term "index-sites" in each of these subbasins as primary research locations and from which to measure status and trend over time.  

Additionally, the YN PLP intends to finalize and begin implementing a 4-year supplementation research plan, which will identify primary supplementation objectives, locations for juvenile and adult out-plantings and an associated monitoring strategy.  

The long-term Project objectives are as follows:

Consolidate and summarize current, historical information related to Pacific lamprey distribution and abundance within the Yakama Nation ceded lands.
Identify lamprey adult and juvenile migration characteristics.
Identify current habitat strongholds for ammocoete rearing.  Quantify and index relative densities of ammocoetes.
Describe known and / or potential factors that contribute to relatively strong or weak ammocoete production in key (or index) watersheds.  
Describe key habitat characteristics that may contribute or are related to juvenile growth and productivity.
Measure weights of ammocoete and lengths to correlate, if possible age class and annual productivity.
Identify the key limiting factors that prevent juveniles from successfully hatching, staging and achieving high levels of productivity in preferred habitats.  
Identify key areas where adults hold and/or spawn.  Identify environmental / physiological conditions that trigger spawning to occur.
Describe key habitat characteristics that may contribute or are related to adult holding and/or spawning.
Identify the key limiting factors that prevent adults from successfully migrating and/or spawning.
Identify known and suspected passage barriers to adult lamprey migration.
Identify actions that can be taken to restore or enhance adult holding and spawning.
Initiate small scale re-introductions of artificially propagated lamprey into selected areas within the Yakima Subbasin.
Continue to translocate adults into watersheds where they have been extirpated, or nearly so, and to monitor productivity of these translocations.