The ISRP requested a succinct summary of the fish rearing program for Lake Roosevelt since it involves three projects that rear fish, and a fourth project that is responsible for evaluating post-release survival, growth, and harvest.Sponsors of the Spokane Tribal Hatchery (1991-046-00), Sherman Creek Hatchery (1991-047-00), and Lake Roosevelt Trout Net Pen (1995-009-00) projects responded to ISRP questions in a single document and provided adequate information. Ideally, the sponsors would have text and data tables such as those in the response in concise annual reports. 

The projects producing rainbow trout and kokanee for release into Lake Roosevelt to provide resident fish substitution for lost anadromous production above Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams have established metrics for performance in culture (hatchery and net-pens) including egg collections, egg-to-fry survival, fry-to-release survival, fish health maintenance as well as post-release monitoring to collect survival and harvest information. Since the last review in 2006 (2007/2009 review) the co-managers have developed harvest objectives for kokanee and rainbow trout and a decision tree for kokanee egg production from Lake Roosevelt hatchery kokanee collected at Hawk Creek. The decision tree includes performance thresholds that would terminate the effort.

The data show that performance in the hatchery and net pens is adequate for both trout and kokanee. However, the percentages of released rainbow trout and yearling kokanee that are harvested are very low, averaging only 4.6% and 0.3%, respectively. These harvest levels are much lower than the harvest goals. Presumably, the harvest rate of kokanee resulting from fry releases is much lower. Are the low harvest rates associated with low survival after release, low angler effort, or both? While the hatchery program has released numerous trout and kokanee and has contributed to harvests of resident fishes, it is not clear that the program has “greatly enhanced Lake Roosevelt fishing opportunities” as stated on page 35 of the sponsor response.

The Lake Roosevelt Evaluation Project has done a good job in RME for these projects and has provided the post release metrics for these projects. Information on the harvest of wild redband trout and actions to minimize harvests of wild kokanee through harvest regulations is appreciated. 

ISRP Retrospective Evaluation of Results

Collectively, the Spokane Tribal Hatchery (199104600), WDFW Sherman Creek Hatchery (199104700), and Lake Roosevelt Net Pens (199500900) plan to rear 750,000 yearling rainbow trout (5/lb) for release into Lake Roosevelt in May after draw-down is complete. Rainbow trout will grow in the reservoir and recruit to the fishery the following fall and winter. These projects also rear 2 to 3 million kokanee fry (300/lb) and 250,000 kokanee yearlings (7/lb) for release into the reservoir. Kokanee broodstock from Lake Roosevelt are being developed using Hawk Creek as a broodstock collection location. For rainbow trout, triploid eyed eggs are obtained from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (WDFW) Spokane Hatchery. For kokanee, Meadow Creek stock eggs are obtained from British Columbia (based on availability), and Lake Whatcom stock eggs are obtained from WDFW. Kokanee egg availability is dependent on adult run size in the source locations and is a limiting factor for achieving fry and yearling release goals.

For rainbow trout, eggs are incubated at the Spokane Tribal hatchery, and fry split between the Spokane Tribal Hatchery and Sherman Creek Hatchery. In October juvenile rainbow trout are transferred to net pens for production rearing for eventual release the following May. For kokanee, eggs are received at the WDFW Spokane Hatchery for thermal marking. Kokanee fry releases are hatched and reared at the Spokane Tribal Hatchery. Kokanee yearling releases are hatched at the Spokane Tribal Hatchery and split and reared at both the Spokane Tribal Hatchery and Sherman Creek Hatchery.

These projects have life-stage survival goals of 80% egg survival to feeding fry, 90% survival from fry to fingerlings, and 90% survival from fingerlings to yearlings.

For rainbow trout, at the Sherman Creek Hatchery there have been unaccounted losses of juvenile fish ranging from 13.5% to 19.1%. The source of these losses needs to be identified, and efforts to remedy them are warranted. The Lake Roosevelt Trout Net Pen Project released, on average, 638,000 triploid trout per year, which is slightly under the goal of 750,000 trout as a result of low numbers of fish (259,000) released in 2007.

For kokanee the release numbers have been variable with shortfall in release numbers owing to the unavailability of eggs.

Survival from release to harvest has not meet program goals. The co-managers and stakeholders express satisfaction with the rainbow trout program despite not having achieved the harvest targets. For rainbow trout the harvest goal is 50,000 to 150,000 fish; this has only been achieved in 2010 for the four years 2007 to 2010. The other three years had harvest of 11,547, 18,333, and 31,204. Approximately 28,200 trout have been harvested each year; the percentage of released trout that are harvested is low, averaging 4.6%. For kokanee, the goal is 18,500 fish from stocking fry and 12,500 from stocking yearlings. Table 9 in the response provided kokanee harvest for yearling hatchery production of 122; 368; 1,086; and 1,842 fish. This is a harvest yield ranging from 0.04% to 0.80%, well below the 5% goal for yearling kokanee. The harvest of wild redband trout has averaged 3,270 trout per year.

It is likely that reservoir environmental conditions including operational constraints and the biological community structure are unsuitable for rainbow trout and kokanee survival to the levels desired.

===========QUALIFICATIONS FOLLOW================

These Qualifications and Comments apply to the following projects:

Spokane Tribal Hatchery (199104600)

Sherman Creek Hatchery (199104700)

Lake Roosevelt Net-Pens (199500900) - Please note that comments for rainbow trout only, not kokanee, apply to this project.

The harvests of both net-pen reared yearling rainbow trout and kokanee fry and yearlings are substantially below the program goals. For rainbow trout the harvest goal is 50,000 to 150,000 fish. Over the period 2007-2010, this goal has been achieved only in 2010. The other three years had harvest of 11,547, 18,333, and 31,204. Kokanee have fared even worse. The kokanee goal is 18,500 fish from stocking fry and 12,500 from stocking yearlings. Harvests from yearling hatchery production from 2007 to 2010 were 122; 368; 1,086; and 1,842 fish. This is a harvest yield ranging from 0.04% to 0.80%, well below the 5% goal for yearlings.

It is likely that reservoir environmental conditions including operational constraints and the biological community structure is unsuitable for rainbow trout and kokanee survival to the levels desired.

The project sponsors should continue efforts to evaluate why harvest rates are so low on stocked trout and kokanee. The sponsors need to develop future plans for revising harvest goals for kokanee due to the continuing low harvest rates or provide plans for addressing their two major limiting factors: entrainment and predation by invasive non-native species (specifically walleye). Furthermore, in view of the partial success, developing plans for experimental fish culture work (even if modest) as part of the hatchery program to address post-release shortcomings needs consideration. Some effort to understand variation in past return to creel results would also be useful, including an assessment of past practices and their results (positive or negative). Such a scientific addition to this work could add a valuable and non-routine, adaptive management dimension to the fish-rearing.

They should also continue to evaluate whether wild redband and kokanee can withstand the harvest rates they encounter in response to harvests on hatchery fish. The attempt to fin clip 100% of yearling kokanee and trout should be evaluated after all fish have been presumably marked, because poorly marked fish may cause bias in fish metrics.

Our opinion from the current set of results with kokanee is essentially the same as our last review of the Lake Roosevelt Guiding Document. With entrainment and predation, the kokanee goals are just not being met. The kokanee stocking likely provides a forage base for predatory non-native fish in Lake Roosevelt. The ISRP believes there is a need to take a hard look at whether kokanee are a scientifically realistic fish to attempt to produce a mitigation fishery, despite past kokanee production in Lake Roosevelt and cultural values.

An economic analysis of the various stocking efforts in Lake Roosevelt and the harvest benefits would be useful. This might be a good task for the IEAB or the sponsors.

A response is requested to provide metrics for hatchery production, and reporting on harvest, growth, and survival in the reservoir. Metrics should be included in a table and brief narrative that summarizes the production including eggs received, fish hatched, fish reared, fish transferred, and fish released as well as post release survival and harvest for each stock in each year since the last review. This information is required by the ISRP to complete evaluation of the proposal and provide retrospective reporting to the Council.

1. Purpose: Significance to Regional Programs, Technical Background, and Objectives

Technical background: The problem statement provides a reasonable history of using artificial propagation of kokanee and rainbow trout in Lake Roosevelt to attempt to provide subsistence and recreational fishing to mitigate the loss of anadromous salmon due to the construction of Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph Dams. The organization of the problem statement, however, is cumbersome. It is difficult to locate information relevant to questions that arise elsewhere in the proposal. For example, the sponsors identify in the adaptive management section that stocking of rainbow trout has increased from 500,000 to 750,000 fish and state elsewhere that the reservoir has the capacity to support the additional stocking. Information on survival rates and condition factor would support the hypothesis, but is not conveniently located to confirm this conclusion.

Significance to regional programs: The use of hatchery fish to support subsistence and recreational angling is a strategy recognized by the Fish and Wildlife Program and subbasin plans. The proposal states that Sherman Creek Hatchery, as part of the Lake Roosevelt Fisheries Evaluation Project (LRFEP) is consistent with objectives defined in the MERR. The specific components of the MERR and specific tasks and deliverables in the LRFEP or Sherman Creek Hatchery O&M proposal are not identified.

Project objectives: Proposal instructions state that a project objective should provide a biological and/or physical habitat benchmark by which results can be evaluated. For the Sherman Creek Hatchery O&M proposal the ultimate objectives of increasing or providing subsistence and recreational harvest is fine, but no benchmarks are provided for establishing the benefits from the project. This proposal needs metrics for hatchery production including fish reared, fish survival, fish condition, and fish disease history as well as post hatchery performance including survival, fish condition, and contribution to harvest. In addition measures of social and economic benefit of the fisheries would be valuable. The Spokane Tribal Hatchery O&M proposal indicates that there is a harvest goal of 50,000 to 150,000 for rainbow trout (20% of release) and a 31,000 kokanee harvest goal (18,500 from fry releases [0.5% of release] and 12,500 from fingerling releases [5% of release]. The proposal needs to justify the harvest goals based on reservoir capacity and ecology, and provide a self-evaluation of achieving these benchmarks. The Sherman Creek O&M proposal needs to confirm that these numbers of harvested fish represent the appropriate end point for evaluation.

Emerging limiting factors: The proposal provides a thorough discussion of limiting factors from predation by walleye and smallmouth bass in the problem statement section. However, challenges in managing fish harvest using out-of-basin hatchery stocks such as coastal Washington Lake Whatcom kokanee and coastal California triploid rainbow trout, in the presence of native kokanee and redband trout is not thoroughly acknowledged or considered. Introgression is mentioned, but risk management beyond the use of triploid fish is absent from the proposal. If the status of native kokanee or redband trout declines, the project scope may need to be reevaluated. The effects of toxic wastes from Canada are not fully considered.

2. History: Accomplishments, Results, and Adaptive Management (ISRP Review of Results)

Accomplishments and results: A focused summary is needed of the annual hatchery and post-release performance. The performance indicators and their standards, such as life-stage survival need to be identified, and the programs results need to be presented including disease inspection history and facility standards, for example discharge water quality. The proposal states that fish rearing follows WDFW fish culture guidelines. The guidelines should be provided, the methods of testing identified, and the results presented.

Adaptive management: The information provided is adequate, especially when considering the material included in the problem statement.

ISRP Retrospective Evaluation of Results

The ISRP’s retrospective evaluation of results will be added following a response by the sponsors summarizing hatchery production history and follow-up performance metrics.

3. Project Relationships, Emerging Limiting Factors, and Tailored Questions for Type of Work (hatchery, RME, tagging)

Project Relationships: The information provided is adequate for consideration of Lake Roosevelt BPA projects. Additional consideration is needed with Washington trout stocking programs, and whether this project is consistent/compliant with the State of Washington’s policies on hatchery operations, fish release, harvest yields, and native species interactions.

Emerging Limiting Factors: Consideration of predation on project fish by walleye, smallmouth bass, and northern pike is mentioned and discussed in detail in the problem statement. Reservoir operations and other environmental considerations, for example climate change are briefly identified. Absent from the list is interactions with native redband trout and native kokanee. The problem statement suggests the status of kokanee remains unsolved. Wild kokanee might be progeny from reservoir spawning local fish, but spawning locations and documentation of early life stages remains undocumented. The problem statement also identifies that native redband trout inhabit reservoir tributaries and regions below Lake Roosevelt. The project seems to have been initiated with little explicit consideration of these native populations. Some genetic and tagging efforts are intended to improve the knowledge of interactions, and the project is using triploid rainbow trout to avoid introgression. Explicitly addressing the effects of the hatchery/harvest program on native resident fish is needed. If consequential impacts are detected they could influence the fate of the project.

Tailored questions: 

1. Describe opportunities to restore or reintroduce resident native fish: The response indicates that other projects are involved in sturgeon and redband trout restoration and habitat enhancement. 

2. Loss assessment: A resident fish loss assessment has not been completed.

3. Impacts of non-native fish releases on native fishes: The sponsors’ statement that the rainbow trout and kokanee released by the project are "native," may be technically true, but operationally it is not. The rainbow trout are a stock derived from the coastal California subspecies, and the kokanee from Lake Whatcom are from a coastal location in Washington. These fish are substantially differentiated from the interior wild fish based on recent genetic investigations. The sponsors include an adequate discussion of the operating hypothesis that stocked rainbow trout and kokanee are primarily planktivores. The monitoring plan for the program needs to continue to evaluate the potential for impacts on native kokanee, redband trout, and non-game fish. Impacts to forage fish species could have trophic affects that would require management decisions.

4. Deliverables, Work Elements, Metrics, and Methods

Deliverables are presented in a straightforward manner as 750,000 triploid rainbow trout, 3.7 million kokanee fry, and 250,000 kokanee yearlings.

The metrics for fish production including life-stage survival, condition factor, fish health as well as facility operations including water discharge and invasive species inspections are not presented and need to be included.

The RM&E protocols and methods section states: "There are no RM&E protocols identified for this proposal." The ISRP questions this and believes that the monitoring and evaluation needs to be sufficient to meet the Council Program’s Artificial Production standards.

4a. Specific comments on protocols and methods described in MonitoringMethods.org

There are no RM&E protocols identified for this proposal in MonitoringMethods.org.