FY07-09 proposal 199107200

Jump to Reviews and Recommendations

Section 1. Administrative

Contacts

Section 2. Locations

Province / subbasin: Mountain Snake / Salmon

Section 3. Focal species

Section 4. Past accomplishments

Section 5. Relationships to other projects

Section 6. Biological objectives

Section 7. Work elements (coming back to this)

Section 8. Budgets

Itemized estimated budget

Total estimated FY 2007-2009 budgets

Cost sharing

Section 9. Project future

Future O&M costs: This program receives a cash cost share from the IDFG Chinook Captive Rearing Project (199700100). Discussions to resolve how to offset the loss of this cost share should begin prior to the sunsetting of the Chinook program in 2012.

Termination date: not identified
Comments: The Idaho Department of Fish and Game will continue recovery efforts to maintain and rebuild the Snake River sockeye salmon populations. Any decision to terminate this program will involve federal and state policy decision makers.

Final deliverables:

Section 10. Narrative and other documents

Reviews and recommendations

ISRP PRELIMINARY REVIEW (Jun 2, 2006)

Recommendation: Not fundable

NPCC comments: General Comments on the Suite of Stanley Basin Sockeye Proposals: The ISRP recommends "not fundable" for this suite of projects (199107200, 199204000, 200727600, and 199107100) originally designed to prevent extinction of Stanley Basin sockeye salmon. Since there has been no response by the populations to recovery efforts in the Basin, it is clear that conditions outside the Basin determine the fate of these fish, and there is no evidence that these conditions are likely to improve significantly in the foreseeable future. Not only are these limiting conditions not likely to change, the fish themselves are likely to be changing as a result of present intensive propagation and rearing procedures so that their viability even under restored conditions is increasingly in doubt. Recovery of endangered species is important, but evidence presented here does not demonstrate that recovery is occurring. The view of the ISRP is that there is no scientific basis for continuing this program. The reintroduction efforts in the Stanley Basin lakes have been thorough and well conceived. Yet few fish have returned from the ocean. Many of those that do return disappear between Lower Granite Dam and the Sawtooth Hatchery and Redfish Lake weirs. The returns are so low now, that doubling them by doubling the smolt production would not the yield the returns identified as needed in the proposal. Failure of sockeye to respond significantly to the recent (1999-2002) upturn in ocean conditions suggests that the population is no longer able to respond to the environment. This is, however, not only a numerical problem but also a viability problem. The greater the time these fish are dependent on support of "artificial" propagation methods, the greater the genetic divergence from the original population and the lower the potential for producing a self-sustaining population. Given this inevitable divergence, fish transplanted from other populations in the basin or adjacent basins are likely to be as suitable founders as are any remaining "Stanley Basin fish" that might be available if habitat conditions are restored at some time in the future. Additional information regarding the Stanley Lake basin sockeye salmon and captive rearing strategies is discussed in ISRP programmatic summaries provided with this report. Although the recommendation is to discontinue the program, some specific comments regarding the program are included in the following. Objectives in project #199107200 are all in terms of fish to be reared, spawned, and released. It is more appropriate for objectives to include the return of anadromous adults from the program followed by successful outmigration of smolts and their return. In earlier documents there is mention of recovery targets for the ESU - something like 500 adults returning to basin lakes on average, over 5 years. These targets, or their current status, should be included in the objectives. The proposal is clearly written and provides a good description of the project. There is a reasonable summary of the work-to-date. Previous summaries described that a number of fish returning to the Stanley Lakes basin were unmarked and believed to be natural production - perhaps from spawning of released adults, anadromous adults from the program, or egg plants from this program. This was not discussed in this summary and should be. Also, according to proposal 199305600, many sockeye are tracked to Lower Granite Dam, but disappear before they reach the Stanley Lakes basin. This may be a major cause for the dismal performance of the project so far. Proponent's views on these limiting issues should be presented in the proposal. The proposal states that NOAA project 199305600 is developing tools that are being used in the Redfish Lake sockeye captive program. But they are not identified here. It would seem the first goal is to prevent the absolute extinction of the Snake River sockeye ESU, recognizing that it is essentially extinct in the wild now. The second goal is restoration of self-sustaining natural populations. The only apparent trigger to sunset this program is achievement of self-sustaining status by the stock. Reporting would benefit from a discussion of the basis for the proponents conclusion that viability has been and is being preserved. Project proponents produce valuable reports and publish in the peer-reviewed literature. Sponsors should provide evidence from other species recovery efforts to show that actions (and time) proposed here are sufficient to preserve the viability of this species to a projected time of recovered habitat.

ISRP FINAL REVIEW (Aug 31, 2006)

Recommendation: Not fundable

NPCC comments: The ISRP carefully considered the sponsor’s response. The ISRP acknowledges that the recommendation in the preliminary review was controversial. The ISRP believes the project sponsors have done all they can do to promote restoration of this sockeye salmon population given the status of the population and environmental setting. The program has been well run using accepted principles of genetics, conservation biology, and salmon culture. The proposal and response are sufficient to the extent that they provide adequate data and explain the sponsor's perspective. The ISRP's pessimistic recommendation is based on our assessment that the project is not showing progress toward meeting an ultimate objective of the population emerging from being maintained by an ex situ, closed captive population. There is inevitable change in the population, and a bleak outlook that significant environmental change is likely in the near future. We are not suggesting alternative approaches that they should have pursued. The narrative for proposal 200727600 - Idaho Department of Fish and Game Rearing expansion for Snake River Sockeye Salmon provides a more comprehensive explanation of the ultimate intent of the captive propagation project than the narrative for 199107200. From 200727600: "The program's ultimate goal is to function as a conventional supplementation program, relying on genetically diverse, rack returns of anadromous adults to meet in-hatchery captive broodstock as well as prespawn adult out-planting needs.” “…to address the long-term project goal and species recovery, the first important milestone to reach will be to generate sufficient anadromous adults to satisfy all in-hatchery spawning needs and to meet release objectives for eyed-eggs, presmolts, and smolts. The second milestone will be to return an adequate number of adults to release to program nursery lakes for natural spawning." The sponsors have not made the case that the program is working - which was our original concern. There are a lot of data about the thousands of fry and smolts produced by the captive broodstock program, but only meager adult returns to the Stanley Basin. The central point the ISRP emphasizes for the sponsor and Council is that the ISRP cannot deduce from the data provided that the population can ever progress from captive broodstock to conventional anadromous hatchery to supplementation supported and finally to naturally self-sustained. This is the goal of the program. The sponsor argues that the reason the program has not progressed is due to a lack of smolt releases. They conclude that the levels of hatchery fish production impedes the programs success, and that more, not less, production is needed. If one reviews the releases in Redfish Lake provided in the proposal, there is substantial variation across years; in 2002 only 96 smolts were released. However, the sponsor’s conclusion that fish for release is limiting the programs is somewhat difficult to reconcile with the sponsors emphasis on the substantial numbers of adults, eggs, pre-smolts, and smolts released from the program, as it’s central success. There have in fact been difficulties in achieving the fish release goals of the culture operations. But that is not the primary issue. The project reports that the average smolt-to-adult return ratio (SAR) is just under 0.1%. They report an average fecundity per female of 1979 eggs (calculated by the ISRP from the project’s data) and they report a recent eye-up percentage of 78%. The sponsor does not track eye-eggs into eyed-egg plants, pre-smolt plants, smolt plants, adult plants, and adults retained for future broodfish for any broodyear, in the proposal. Consequently it is not known what the survival from eyed egg to smolt is in this program. In other words, by broodyear we cannot account for the fate of the eggs produced. Under typical hatchery rearing conditions one could reasonably expect another 78% survival from eyed-eggs to smolts. Using these biological characteristics: a fecundity of 1979 eggs per female, 78% survival from green egg to eyed egg, 78% survival from eyed egg to smolt, and 0.1% survival from smolt to adult when released in either Redfish Lake outlet or the upper Salmon River, the expected return from a cohort of eggs from a female is 1.2. For the program to progress from an ex-situ captive population to a self-sustaining anadromous hatchery supported population, the replacement rate per female needs to be at least two (one male and one female). Thus, under the current conditions the program can never progress from captive supported to an anadromous hatchery supported population, no matter how large one made it. Based on this assessment the ISRP believes that it is our responsibility to report our finding that the project is unlikely to achieve the ultimate goals, and is therefore not scientifically sound. The only likely way for the captive propagation program to lead to a recovered population is to substantially improve the smolt-to-adult return ratio. The ISRP does not know whether that is possible. The ISRP does not see any evidence for being optimistic that SARs will be improved in the near future. The ISRP also points out that "Not Fundable" means the proposal is not scientifically justified. The ISRP does not make funding decisions.