FY 2000 proposal 199202200

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 anticipated

Reviews and recommendations

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

Comment:

Comments: The rationale is that if hatchery presmolts could be made to grow more slowly in winter, they'd grow faster in spring and after release would not residualize, migrate faster, and survive better. The benefit to wild salmon is that fewer residuals would deprive wild parr and smolts of resources, and that hatchery stocks would be secure with their own brood source. This is directly in line with the FWP goals, objectives and directives. The research is extensively integrated with other FWP research projects such as #9306000 and #956300. The proposed research addresses a continuing policy question: is investment in production hatchery systems, even if hatchery-wild interactions are minimized through growth rate acceleration, a viable substitute for restoring natural production (from the standpoint of improvided smolt-adult survival)? The primary work product will be new rearing protocols for improving smolt to adult survival and for producing wild-like salmon smolts in hatcheries. This is a mature ongoing project and presents evidence of some significant progress, 7 peer-reviewed reports in 6 yrs (a couple are review articles and not primary research reports) The proposed work is apparently a valuable continuation of the accomplished research. The proposal would be easier to judge if the proposers would give an indication of their results, i.e. one or more graphs or tables. The proposal is also difficult to read because goals for the research are stated several times in different ways (1st unnumbered page, 7th unnumbered page, 12th unnumbered page), as are objectives (3rd unnumbered page, 7th unnumbered page); as are elements (12th unnumbered page). These statements seem to all identify the same things but in differing language.

There are two components. One is to manipulate the growth of chinook smolts at Gnat Creek Hatchery to improve (make wild-like) the smolts ('element 1': This would supplement spring chinook salmon in the Columbia River terminal fishery). As a part of this effort, coded wire tagged fish representing different treatments are to be placed in net pens, but they provide no indication of number of pens or density of fish in pens. They mention control and test fish but do not indicate number of control and test groups. The sampling protocol is also not clear. They plan to sample 15 fish from each group. Reviewers assume there are 2 groups, fasted and control, but the number of replicates is not provided. It is unclear what the sampling regimen will be.

The second component is to compare physiological qualities of smolts reared at Cle Elum Hatchery in two regimes, OCT and SNT, with each other (element 2) and with wild smolts (element 3). The first project entails releasing and recovering CWT groups of chinooks and evaluating returns to the terminal fishery at Young's Bay while the second entails no life-cycle evaluation by CWT groups. Both projects entail physiological characterizations of smolts.

The description of proposed methods is too terse. There is no indication of experimental power, particularly of CWT release groups, and this lack of information leaves reviewers with unanswered questions. What numbers are to be released? What can reasonably be expected to return? What statistical power is there for testing hypotheses? It's likely that returns will be not very large, therefore will differences be detected? The high reputation of the proponents does give confidence that the methods are adequate. The proponents are qualified by education and experience and have published several peer-reviewed reports of their research in recent years (3 from Fish and Wildlife Program research), all evidence of their competency. However, the budget indicates that a subcontractor whose identity and role in the project are not indicated will expend half the effort. These factors make it hard to be fully confident of the capability of the researchers and therefore of the adequacy of the methods. This research will benefit both supplementation and captive broodstock efforts in the FWP. It should go forward, but because the proposal is lacking in some information, the ISRP should review the research again next year.

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