2003-063-00: Proposals

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Proposals

A Proposal is an application to continue existing work or start new work. While historically the Program solicited for all types of projects at once, starting in fiscal year 2009, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and BPA are reviewing and soliciting for projects that are similar in nature and intent. These "categorical" reviews started with Wildlife projects and continue with Research, Monitoring, & Evaluation (RME) and Artificial Production (Hatchery) projects.

Project 2003-063-00 - Natural Reproductive Success and Demographic Effects of Hatchery-Origin Steelhead in Abernathy Creek, Washington

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	Proposal Number	Proposal Version	Type	State	Project	Title	Description	Creator	Percent Complete	Proposal Budget Limit	Create Date	Last Updated	Primary Contact	Proponent	Purpose	Emphasis	Solicitation	Portfolio	Biop Fish Accord
		Proposal Version 1	Existing Project	Pending BPA Response				Patricia Crandell (Inactive)


	RMECAT-2003-063-00	Proposal Version 1	Existing Project	Pending BPA Response	2003-063-00	Natural Reproductive Success and Demographic Effects of Hatchery-Origin Steelhead in Abernathy Creek, Washington	This project will evaluate relative reproductive success between hatchery-origin (HOR) and natural-origin (NOR) steelhead trout, simultaneously investigating methods of operating a conservation hatchery and the effectiveness of artificial production of an integrated NOR/HOR broodstock on recovery. This directly addresses 2008 NOAA Fisheries FCRPS Biological Opinion (NWF v. NMFS, Civ. No. CV 01-640-RE (D. Oregon)) reasonable and prudent alternatives (RPAs) 63.1, 64.1, and 64.2. This work is important because hatchery programs for steelhead may pose genetic or ecological risks to natural populations. Also, the ability of HOR adults to reproduce successfully and contribute genetically, via supplementation, to the recovery of naturally spawning steelhead populations is still a major uncertainty in the Pacific Northwest. This question has been debated intensively throughout the Columbia River Basin for over 10 years but remains unresolved. Indeed, a major symposium on this topic was conducted in 2000 to specifically address these uncertainties and identify future research and co-manager needs (IMST 2000). We propose to continue the project conducted at US Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS’s) Abernathy Fish Technology Center (AFTC) that was first approved for funding in 2004. AFTC developed an integrated steelhead broodstock starting with pre-smolt NOR juveniles collected from a stream from which the native broodstock was desired and then rearing the broodstock to sexual maturity in a hatchery. This is a technique such as might be employed by a conservation hatchery charged with supplementing a small steelhead population. AFTC minimally impacted the natural spawning population because juvenile (age 0+parr)-to-adult survivals are typically very small (<1%) under natural conditions, increased genetic effective population size because juveniles can theoretically represent the offspring of all adults that spawn successfully within a stream or watershed, and reduced the risk of genetically “swamping” the natural spawning population (Ryman and Laikre 1991; Ryman et al. 1995) as occurs when HOR fish represent a relatively small number of trapped adults. In order to minimize genetic differences between NOR and HOR steelhead, we will continue to utilize captured NOR steelhead to maintain an integrated NOR/HOR broodstock. To achieve our goal of evaluating relative reproductive success, all NOR and HOR upstream-migrating adults will continue to be genotyped and samples of their naturally-produced offspring will be identified via parentage analyses. We have started to compare the reproductive success and demographic changes (to both juvenile steelhead production and adult returns) occurring within Abernathy Creek to two control streams (i.e. Germany and Mill creeks) to determine whether supplementation was successful and are attempting to understanding why (e.g. behavioral, physiological differences between hatchery and wild fish) supplementation has succeeded or failed. This work has been and will continue to be conducted by the AFTC staff. A major motivation for the captive-rearing work described in this proposal resulted from NOAA-Fisheries 1999 Biological Opinion on Artificial Propagation in the Columbia River Basin and the 2008 NOAA-Fisheries FCRPS Biological Opinion (NWF v. NMFS, Civ. No. CV 01-640-RE (D. Oregon)). In these biological opinions (BOs), NMFS concluded that non-native hatchery stocks of steelhead jeopardize the continued existence of Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed, naturally spawning populations in the Columbia River Basin. As a consequence of the 1999 BO, NOAA-Fisheries recommended that federal and state agencies phase out non-native broodstocks of steelhead and replace them with native broodstocks. However, NOAA-Fisheries provided no guidance regarding how to achieve that RPA. The most recent (2008)FCRPS BO recommended that hatchery effectiveness and reform (HSRG 2004, 2009) efforts be monitored, specifically suggesting that hatchery programs preserve genetic resources, monitor and evaluate migration characteristics and fish performance in order to determine the effects of hatchery programs on the viability and recovery of salmon and steelhead populations. Although these recommendations are intuitively logical, the development of native broodstocks of hatchery steelhead may pose unacceptable biological risks to naturally spawning populations, particularly those that are already listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA. The traditional method of initiating new hatchery broodstocks of anadromous salmonid fishes is by trapping adults during their upstream, spawning migration. However, removing NOR adults from ESA listed populations may not be biologically acceptable because such activities may further depress those populations via “broodstock mining”. In addition, trapping a large proportion of adult steelhead may be logistically unfeasible in many subbasins because high water in the spring when steelhead move upstream to spawn will often destroy temporary weirs. As a result, alternative methods for developing native broodstocks are highly desired. Much of the uncertainty associated with the impact of artificial production on recovery of NOR steelhead is due to the absence of detailed studies on a small, experimental scale with control populations. Virtually all evaluations to date have either been at large watershed levels (i.e. on a production scale; see Araki et al. 2007) and/or have failed to incorporate comparisons between appropriate control and supplemented populations (IMST 2000). Our work on Abernathy Creek steelhead differs significantly from that of the Araki et al. (2007) Hood River project but is a complementary study. For example, the original broodstock for the AFTC project was initiated with juvenile steelhead that were captively reared to maturity, in contrast to the Hood River project which was initiated with returning adult steelhead. Therefore, the AFTC project provides an assessment of an alternative method of establishing a native broodstock when large numbers of native adults are unavailable. Both projects had a large number of juvenile fish that could not be assigned parents, possibly the result of spawning with resident rainbow and residual hatchery steelhead. Through analysis of PIT tag information and supplementary studies (otolith microchemistry and fatty acid comparisons of resident and anadromous juveniles), we are working assess the impact of resident rainbows and their genetic contribution and ecological effects on wild fish, something that is beyond the scope of a large project like the Hood River study. Additionally, while our results to date are predominantly based on parentage assignment for juvenile outmigrating smolts, continuation of this work until the majority of our released progeny return as adults will provide the opportunity to compare the relative reproductive success of HOR and NOR parents from spawning to the smolt stage with relative reproductive success from spawning to adult return. Determining the relative reproductive success of individual HOR and NOR adults, coupled with monitoring demographic changes in population abundance (i.e. juvenile production and adult returns) with appropriate natural population controls, is critical to (a) determining whether artificial production would be a useful tool for recovery and (b) understanding why supplementation succeeded or failed. Performing such assessments in the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam offers the added advantage of maximizing adult return rates and, thus, the statistical power and efficiency of detecting true differences between HOR and NOR fish. The work outlined in this proposal will be carried out by AFTC staff employed within the applied Conservation Genetics, Ecological Physiology, and Fish Culture programs. The field data collection will be conducted on Abernathy, Germany, and Mill Creeks and laboratory and data analyses will be conducted at AFTC. The effectiveness of the particular artificial production program as a tool for recovery will be assessed by monitoring demographic changes (i.e. juvenile production and adult returns) within the populations as well as through refined genetic, physiological, and modeling techniques as outlined in the methods section.	Patricia Crandell (Inactive)			06/07/2010	07/08/2011	Patricia Crandell (Inactive)	US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)	Artificial Production	None	RME / AP Category Review	RM&E Cat. Review - RM&E	BiOp