The Kelt Steelhead Reconditioning and Reproductive Success Evaluation Project is a research, monitoring, and evaluation (RM&E) category project funded through the Columbia Basin Fish Accords.  The project studies and evaluates two broad topics with respect to post-spawn steelhead, first it assesses reconditioning processes and strategies, and second, it measures reproductive success of artificially reconditioned kelt steelhead.  It associates with RPAs 33 and 64 in the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion.  RPA 33 requires the Action Agencies to develop, in cooperation with regional salmon managers, and to then implement a Snake River steelhead kelt management plan designed to provide at least a 6% improvement in B-run population productivity.  Toward that goal, a variety of approaches are being tested and implemented including passage improvements and reconditioning kelt stage steelhead.  This project focuses on the reconditioning component.  RPA 64 involves resolving artificial propagation critical uncertainties primarily through relative reproductive success studies.  This project is working toward evaluating reproductive success of artificially reconditioned kelt steelhead. This research contributed five papers to the published literature in 2014 (Buelow and Moffitt 2014; Caldwell et al. 2014; Penney and Moffitt 2014a; Penney and Moffitt 2014b; Hernandez et al. 2014).  Our team presented 14 project presentations in 2014 at basin, regional, national, and international levels.  

The Kelt Reconditioning and Reproductive Success Evaluation Project is a research, monitoring, and evaluation (RM&E) category project funded through the Columbia Basin Fish Accords.  The objectives are to evaluate methodologies to produce viable artificially reconditioned repeat steelhead spawners and to determine the productivity of repeat spawners.  Work occurs in the Yakima and Snake river basins.  We focused on collecting steelhead kelts at juvenile bypass facilities in Prosser and Lower Granite dams, and additionally some fish were collected at Dworshak National Fish Hatchery, and the Fish Creek weir.  These kelts were reconditioned (given prophylactic treatments and fed a specially formulated diet) at Prosser and Dworshak National fish hatcheries.  Survival to fall of long-term reconditioned steelhead was 61% at Prosser and 30% at Dworskak hatcheries in 2014.  Using estradiol assays, we have established that steelhead rematuration rates vary annually and spatially and range from 10.4% to 80.0%. We have also determined from our study streams kelts can remature as consecutive or skip spawners, typically returning to spawn in 5 or 6 months after kelting or 17 to 18 months later.  We characterized the outmigrating Snake River kelt run as primarily composed of Salmon, Grand Ronde, and the Imnaha populations based on GSI analysis at Lower Granite Dam.  A total of 34 reconditioned B-run steelhead were released below Bonneville Dam in 2014 to address Reasonable and Prudent Alternative 33 of the FCRSP Biological Opinion.  We air-spawned a group of maiden Dworshak Hatchery steelhead in 2013.  These fish were then reconditioned and rematuring fish were air-spawned as repeat spawners in 2014 to compare performance between maiden and repeat spawnings.  Comparisons of fecundity, fertilization rate, and egg size variables revealed that repeat spawners had larger eggs and a greater abundance of eggs and no differences in fertilization rates were detected.  Reproductive success of reconditioned steelhead was confirmed in the Yakima River with assignments of 23 juvenile fish to 11 unique parents. A work plan was developed and approved to use the Cle Elum Hatchery spawning channel to improve reproductive success estimates for reconditioned kelt steelhead.  Fish will be stocked in the channel in 2015.  We used radio telemetry in 2014 to track 19 reconditioned kelts to spawning streams to refine our estimates of production in the Yakima River and its tributaries. We developed a model to examine population recovery from the perspective of a kelt reconditioning program.  The model mimics iteroparity in ways explicit to body condition, reconditioning, and release method. We have shown that repeat spawners could contribute up to 10% of spawning if sufficient kelts are captured and reconditioned, consistent with existing data on survival and maturation rates and estimates of repeat spawner fecundity.  This modeling tool provides the means to examine several questions regarding potential avenues for recovery, and management options for doing so.  Our team published 5 manuscripts and gave 14 professional presentations in 2014.

From an adaptive management standpoint in 2014, the experimental spawning channel at Cle Elum Hatchery will be available, so we are currently drafting a proposal and study plan to use the channel in an evaluation of reconditioned steelhead reproductive success.  Additional components such as resident rainbow trout contribution and maiden steelhead reproductive success may also be added.


Objectives

1.  Plan and coordinate all aspects of project implementation including permitting, subcontracting, and logistics.  

Rationale:  This project is very complex.  It involves geographic replication of specimen collection, artificial reconditioning of post-spawn steelhead, and state-of-the-art genetic analysis.  Two different tribal fishery staffs will be conducting field collections and CRITFC will coordinate activities.  The target species is listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in all areas above Bonneville Dam, which invokes a federal permitting process.

2.  Evaluate reproductive success of artificially reconditioned kelt steelhead.

Rationale:  Determining reproductive success of individual steelhead involves very intense monitoring and evaluation.  We plan to evaluate reproductive success of artificially reconditioned kelt steelhead in the Cle Elem Hatchery spawning channel and through the Yakima River.  The spawning channel will provide a means to intensely evaluate reproduction in a controlled environment and using pedigree analysis we can assign known-age juveniles produced in the Yakima River to repeat spawning steelhead. Preliminary results from 2013 indicate, we identified 18 juvenile steelhead as progeny from reconditioned kelt steelhead in a sample 497 age 0 juvenile steelhead.  This 3.6% (18/497) component is similar to the composition that artificially reconditioned steelhead comprised in the Yakima River run at large suggesting that production contributions were similar between maiden and artificially reconditioned steelhead.  Additionally, we will study endocrinology and physiology measures that are an index to rematuration and reproduction.  This work will be concentrated in the Snake River Basin, but samples will be taken from all study areas.

3.  Apply kelt steelhead reconditioning techniques at selected streams to post-spawners for release back into study streams.

Rationale:  This objective will test the following hypothesizes:
Ho:  Kelt steelhead reconditioning rates are similar spatially and temporally; and,
Ho:  Kelt steelhead rematuration rates are similar spatially and temporally.  
Additionally this objective will provide the reproductive success experiment (objective 2) with reconditioned kelt steelhead for study.
  
At each study sites (Yakima, Snake, and Clearwater rivers), kelt steelhead will be collected as they accumulate on the upstream side of each picket weir or other collection site.  These fish will be removed with dip nets and placed in an anesthetic tank.  Anesthetized steelhead will be visually examined to classify each fish as a kelt or prespawn individual.  Methods for visual classification are available and primarily involve keying specimens based on an imploded abdomen.  This visual technique was highly precise when compared with the use of ultrasound analysis.  If a specimen is suspected to be a pre-spawner the fish will be released on the downstream side of the weir.  Following collection anaesthetized kelts will be "in-processed", where they are scanned for a PIT tags, measured, weighed, fish color and condition noted, injected with Ivomec intubate (parasite treatment), and injected with a PIT tag if not present in the specimen.  The kelts are then held in a tank prior to transport to the reconditioning facilities.  Kelt steelhead will be transported to reconditioning facilities for culturing.  After kelt rearing/reconditioning, they will be released back into the stream of capture, and comparisons of reconditioning success among sites will be made.

4.  Investigate and develop approaches to utilize the steelhead kelt life stage to increase steelhead populations.

Rationale:  Providing assistance to post-spawn steelhead in the forms of transportation, feed, and prophylactic measures may increase the probability that individual steelhead repeat spawn and contribute to population growth.  In this objective we measure the variation in steelhead response to intervention method.  Further we are attempting to identify locations that are particularly problematic to steelhead kelt migrations in the lower Columbia River and estuary.

In this objective we will study the physiology and endocrinology of steelhead kelts with a goal of evaluating the feasibility and success of several strategies for rehabilitating and handling of steelhead captured at Lower Granite Dam or at other sites during their downstream migration in the Snake River system. Our research will focus on the physiology, health and condition of both B and A stocks of steelhead trout. Through this research we will pose, develop and test protocols that can be used to collect and transport spent spawners, rehabilitate them for the most effective period of time to maximize their ability and contribution to the next spawning generation.  Our focus is to develop the background science needed for evaluating different production plans for rehabilitation of kelts. The second and third years of the study will focus on more specific studies using metrics developed in the first year as evaluation tools. The second and third year of the study will test larger groups of fish and utilized some seawater testing systems. The details and infrastructure planning aspects of this project are recognized as goals during the first year of this project.  The majority of this work will be conducted under subcontract to the University of Idaho.
  
5.  Evaluate progeny and gamete viability from  reconditioned kelt steelhead.

Rationale:  This objective is addressing the effect of artificial reconditioning on gamete and progeny development.  Work is performed on B-run steelhead at Dworshak National Fish Hatchery.  The premise is to collect hatchery-origin prespawn adults and hold them in a hatchery.  After the female fish are ripe they are air spawned, eggs are fertilized with cryopreserved milt, and the offspring are raised for several weeks while recording various measures of quality.  Female steelhead after air spawning are placed in tanks and reconditioned in a manner similar to our other long-term reconditioning treatments.  This experiment utilizes a replicated, repeated measures experimental design, to assess and compare egg and progeny viability of reconditioned vs. first time spawners.  Long-term reconditioning and subsequent captive spawning provides us with means to obtain valuable quantitative data on gonad processes, maturation rates and juvenile survival.   Data resulting from this research will greatly contribute to the evaluation of reconditioning as a conservation tool.    The hypothesis we are testing is:

Ho: Measures of gamete and progeny viability and quality are similar between first spawning and second spawning following artificial reconditioning.