FY07-09 proposal 200715700

Jump to Reviews and Recommendations

Section 1. Administrative

Contacts

Section 2. Locations

Province / subbasin: Columbia Plateau / Deschutes

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:

Termination date: 2011
Comments: The results of this project will allow the tribes to monitor the status of bull trout in Reservation streams at a greatly reduced cost. These costs may be absorbed. Efforts will shift to brook trout control if they are demonstrated to be a threat to bull trout.

Final deliverables: Final technical report describing results from 2007-2009 will be issued to BPA , USFWS and managers. Results will be used to validate and update, if necessary, the USFWS draft bull trout recovery plan and Deschutes Subbasin Plan. If results are significant they will be submitted for publication during 2010-211. Data will be shared with regional monitoring efforts such as RMEG.

Section 10. Narrative and other documents

Reviews and recommendations

ISRP PRELIMINARY REVIEW (Jun 2, 2006)

Recommendation: Response requested

NPCC comments: Despite long-term ongoing funding and sampling for a predecessor project, the sponsors of this proposal have not succeeded in framing (conceptualizing) this study in a broader context of bull trout ecology. Information sharing with bull trout projects out of central Oregon is noticeably absent. There is not a lot of evidence that much thought has been given to higher-level ecological issues for bull trout. Without a sound, ecologically based rationale, their objectives read more like tasks to be performed. Although they have analyses sections under their objectives, they do not indicate in even a general way what methods they will use or how they will analyze data (even for data already collected by them). They do not seem to have given this topic adequate consideration. This is an off-shoot of long-term continuing project, and at this point it seems that it should just be in the monitoring phase. If this project is funded in this cycle, any future effort should move from research on movements and status monitoring development to strictly status monitoring. A response is requested to clarify several questions: 1. The basis for asserting that the Warm Springs River and Shitike Creek populations of bull trout warrant delineation as a separate core areas. The observation that the Warm Springs River and Shitike Creek are genetically unique from one another is not particularly informative. Using microsatellites, almost every semi-isolated population will be unique to the extent that significant allele frequency differences exist. The critical elements to estimate are migration and gene flow between the populations, so this can be incorporated into viability analyses. 2. What is meant by "relative juvenile abundance and adult escapement indicate that Shitike Ck is robust while the Warm Springs R. population is less healthy than believed"? What is the size of the two populations? What data is used to arrive at the former conclusion? 3 A short summary of the extent of bull and brook trout introgression - hybridization beyond the F1 is needed. Evaluating hybridization is not the same thing as "Determining the level of genetic threat brook trout pose to the persistence of sympatric bull trout in these two streams." Sponsors need to identify how they are going to measure the level of threat based on the identification of hybrid individuals. How do you decide individual fish are likely hybrids? Are there other lab methods besides allozymes and PINES? No microsatellites or single copy RFLPs similar to those used to evaluate O. clarki and O. mykiss hybridization? If the allozymes could be eliminated fin tissue could be used for the analysis and broader sampling could be used. Ten fish per year does not provide a lot of data to draw inferences from. 4. Provide the reasoning that more data is needed to complete the task of evaluating the census model for bull trout abundance. Has the model been peer reviewed?

ISRP FINAL REVIEW (Aug 31, 2006)

Recommendation: Fundable (Qualified)

NPCC comments: The preliminary ISRP review requested that the sponsors clarify the basis for asserting that the Warm Springs River and Shitike Creek populations of bull trout warrant delineation as separate core areas; what was meant by "relative juvenile abundance and adult escapement indicate that Shitike Ck is robust while the Warm Springs R. population is less healthy than believed"; a better explanation of the analysis and purpose of the evaluation of bull and brook trout hybridization; and, the reasoning that more data is needed to complete the task of evaluating the census model for bull trout abundance. The sponsors provided mostly adequate responses to the ISRP questions. The proposal has dropped genetic evaluation of hybrids and PIT and radio-telemetry investigation of fish movement. The annual enumeration of bull trout adults and juveniles remains in the proposal, as well as testing the census model. In future proposal cycles, justification for annual census needs to be based on statistical design of analysis, not just the bull trout recovery plan. The ISRP poses the question of how often must bull trout be sampled to obtain data for determining the trend in population abundance. Completion of the census model is over-due, and testing of the model should be completed in this solicitation cycle. The ISRP also asked if the model has been peer reviewed, but no response was provided. While this project is listed as new, it has actually been ongoing for several years and by now status and trends of bull trout in this system should be well understood. Application of project results for recovery actions should already be underway. It would still be valuable to have those proposing this work frame the project in a broader context of bull trout ecology and management.