Therefore, the ISRP recommends to the Council that the sponsors prepare a 10 to 20 year retrospective evaluation as a qualification for further support. The evaluation should address previous and long-term efforts within the context of how well actions have met or not met mitigation goals/objectives associated with the loss statement and mitigation plan. From this retrospective, the sponsors should construct within the next 18 to 24 months a prioritization framework for ongoing and future mitigation actions and RME. These backward and forward looking document(s) would be reviewed and reported on by the ISRP in a retrospective report. Ultimately, the latter will assist the Council by informing how an individual Objective fulfills a priority and then ultimately how it will accomplish this fulfillment.

An additional qualification is the absence of M&E for resident trout produced by Creston NFH (USFWS; see project 1991-019-04 and associated ISRP review) and stocked by and for MFWP in fishing lakes. The Creston proposal indicates the recipients of the hatchery trout are responsible for stocking decisions and monitoring. The program requires a coordinated M&E effort. This current proposal appears to be the likely venue for evaluating the vital fishery and harvest components of the fish stocked into fishing lakes. The ISRP recommends to the Council that the cooperators (USFWS, MFWP, and CSKT) submit a joint monitoring and evaluation plan for the associated production and stocking activities.

For Deliverable 3, information about the number and location of enhanced stream reaches, along with complementary information for reference reaches is needed.

For Deliverable 4, ISRP remains skeptical of the long-term success of "genetic swamping" approach to hybrid suppression without a complete or nearly so, elimination of RBT or their hybrids. However, there may be merit as a well-controlled, proof-of-concept "experiment" that would inform future management actions. As such, sponsors need to present a monitoring design that would rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of the approach over a multiple generation time frame. A summary of the percentage of WCT and RBT alleles is not a robust metric of success. Rather, some analysis of how the alleles are "packaged" is needed to determine whether a rainbow trout population persists and introgression is continuing or has been effectively suppressed by the method. Moreover, is there an accepted temporal component, that is, how many generations, before the method is deemed a success or not.

The ISRP questions the overall key uncertainty or need associated with Deliverable 6. There is a literature basis for answering this kind of question regarding the persistence and fate of rotenone. Unless there is a unique aspect to the issue, this kind of work has been done elsewhere. Similarly, Deliverable 7 does not identify the key uncertainty(s) and the design for the work. Therefore, these two Deliverables do not meet scientific criteria.

Finally, for Deliverable 9, the ISRP is uncertain about the necessity to develop a library of 300 SNPs for the rainbow and cutthroat introgression issues, whereas 100 SNPs are proposed for bull trout. While analytical power may be increased by having more loci, certainly there will be redundancy with a target of 3-10 markers per chromosome. What is needed to justify either of these library sizes is a power analysis and objective decision rules for deciding sufficiency of the size of the marker set for each specific question/sub-objective.

On a positive note, ISRP applauds the sponsors in their history of creativity and commitment to publishing their work in peer-reviewed outlets. This adds great value and credibility to their RME efforts. From the in-person presentation and on-site visit, the ISRP judged that the sponsors have undertaken many valuable tasks, implemented most of them reasonably, and have an admirable track record of publishing in the peer-reviewed literature. However, the presentation of task accomplishments is not well linked to the categories of mitigation identified in the problem statement, and the accomplishments section does not arrive at a conclusion regarding the status of the task of mitigating for the impacts of Hungry Horse Dam. Adaptive management as a consequence of completing uncertainties research, status and trends monitoring, and implementing restoration actions appears sufficient. Dam operations have been modified, angling regulations for predacious non-native game fish liberalized, and the westslope cutthroat trout management plan established.

A major question is whether estimating vital rates for bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout using PIT tags could be improved by using the design and analysis approach in Program MARK (see website of Dr. Gary White at Colorado State University). This flexible system was designed for estimating survival, abundance, and movement rates for long-lived and mobile organisms like ducks, frogs, and salmon. Recent advances also allow combining data across systems to achieve greater power in estimating parameters like survival and capture probability (for example, see Saunders et al. 2011 in NAJFM for abundance estimates of trout in 10 streams). Likewise, the method allows explicitly incorporating detection rates. Dr. Paul Lukacs of the University of Montana is an expert in using this method, and might be engaged in the research, perhaps with a graduate student or postdoc to achieve state of the art estimating and modeling. The synthesis will prove critical in this project.

Qualifications

The ISRP’s recommendation results from the omnibus nature of the project’s objectives and work elements. In general, the proposed efforts lack an overall cohesiveness that addresses mitigation priorities for Hungry Horse Dam operations outlined in the loss statement and joint mitigation plan (with CSKT). The ISRP suggests that MFWP develop a retrospective that summarizes past work under five general themes and prioritizes general objectives for work in the next 5 to 7 years, showing links among themes as necessary. This retrospective would be reviewed by the ISRP. These themes might be arranged as below:

1. Effects of dam operations on fish and invertebrate habitat and populations.

2. Restoring native westslope cutthroat trout (WCT) to the refuge in the South Fork Flathead River (SFFR) above Hungry Horse Dam (HHD).

3. Understanding and managing non-native species invasions, primarily from rainbow trout, lake trout, and northern pike.

4. Population structure, demography, and viability of three salmonids and several sculpins.

5. Processes that create and maintain habitat for these species, and habitat enhancement to aid these processes.

Modified by Dal Marsters on 4/13/2012 12:47:39 PM.

Qualification is on three points; 1) analysis and evaluation of results from previous, but similar actions; 2) completing Three-Step Review and revision for Sekokini Springs Master Plan; and 3) completing a prioritization of activities.

Funding of implementation activities should be contingent upon completion of a robust analysis of their efforts to date in terms of benefits to fish, or at a minimum, a demonstration that the analysis is occurring (and when findings are expected or will be released). The sponsors state that monitoring has been ongoing, but few results are presented nor is there a description of their management implications. The project is 14 years old and an overview evaluation is overdue.

ISRP recommends "funding in part" for progressing through the Sekokini Springs 3 Step Review process and revision of the project's Master Plan. Subsequent funding for the construction and implementation phase of the project should be contingent on adequate Master Plan revision and favorable scientific review (for programmatic rigor and consistency with the Fish and Wildlife Program principles).

The sponsor did not truly provide a prioritization, although a prioritization in the future was promised, which will help guide key activities.