FY 2000 proposal 20141

Section 1. Administrative

Project location

Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives (RPAs)

Section 2. Past accomplishments

Section 3. Relationships to other projects

Section 4. Budget for Planning and Design phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Planning and Design phase

Section 5. Budget for Construction and Implementation phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Construction and Implementation phase

Section 6. Budget for Operations and Maintenance phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Operations and Maintenance phase

Section 7. Budget for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Section 8. Estimated budget summary

Itemized budget

Total estimated budget

Cost sharing

Other budget explanation

Schedule Constraints: None foreseeable

Reviews and recommendations

This information was not provided on the original proposals, but was generated during the review process.

Comment:

Comments: This a well-written and interesting proposal. Although the idea of reconditioning steelhead kelts has been discussed for many years, this is the first attempt to examine this more rigorously. The authors do a good job of identifying the fishery problem and providing the technical detail for why this proposal addresses the problem. The objectives are clearly defined and measurable, and the researchers propose using the best available scientific techniques. Although the proposal could be improved, this research could lead to a potentially valuable conservation tool. The fact that steelhead reconditioning is already being used in the basin may support scientific testing of these procedures. However, this does not decide the fundamental issue of whether this strategy overall is a good one.

One important concern about the project design is the uncertainty of the prototype PIT tag detector at Bonneville and Prosser dams. The authors acknowledge that, without this detection capability, they will not be able to evaluate survival of several of the release groups. It is not clear from the proposal just how long it might take to perfect the technology at the dams even if the tag detectors are installed in 1999 or 2000. Considering the small number of fish that may be marked and released, it is difficult to evaluate whether the released fish are likely to be found again. This is clearly a critical factor for evaluating the proposed experiment.

While the proposal suggests that reconditioning is a way to restore life-history diversity, it is primarily aimed at fish production. Maintenance of the repeat spawning life-history type presumably would depend indefinitely upon hatchery intervention. The proposal does not correct factors that now prevent expression of the repeat spawning behavior. Therefore, the life-history benefits are not self-sustaining. Like the whole idea of supplementation, success of this effort would seem to come when it is no longer necessary. This may be one of the most critical issues for this proposal, since application of the method ultimately does not promote restoration of normative ecological processes. Important questions to be answered then are: (1) Do the benefits of the work outweigh any risks? (2) Are there any alternative approaches for restoring the capacity of the ecosystem to maintain repeat spawners? (3) Have populations reached such a low level that this program is necessary just to prevent extinction of the repeat spawning type until the limiting factors can be resolved? These issues are not fully discussed in the proposal.

There is a lack of any discussion about potential risks of inbreeding, which could be considerable if reconditioning were successful in very small populations. The authors do state that they will consider the "genetic considerations of long-term reconditioning" under Scenario 3, but fail to provide any details about why this is important or how they would do this. In the analysis of expected costs and benefits that the authors propose, the investigators need to consider the genetic costs and benefits also. This is not a trivial task. The authors also fail to acknowledge that collecting enough kelts to get meaningful sample sizes is a major challenge to this study. Scenarios 1,2, and 4 are especially vulnerable because they also require a high secondary recapture rate of reconditioned kelts. Also lacking is any explanation of the analytical methods by which the investigators propose to use morphological features to develop a quick and accurate method for identifying kelts.

Comment:

Comment:

Programmatic Criteria 2: Met? yes - Project is based on appropriate up to date scientific methods. This project should be given strong consideration as a potential way to increase available spawners while increasing genetic diversity.

Milestone Criteria 3: Met? yes - The only area for potential difficulty appears to be in adequate sample size. Continuing the project for 3 years should alleviate this problem.

Resource Criteria 4: Met? yes - The author should check the box for multi-year funding in section 2.

Comment:

Comment: