Short Description
Continue to test and evaluate methods to recondition steelhead kelts and/or transport them around hydro system, generate science-based management recommendations, and assist in their implementation to rebuild wild steelhead populations throughout the Basin.

This project began in 2001 as a pilot study to investigate the potential and techniques required to recondition post spawn steelhead.  Results have been very promising with reconditioning rates reaching 62.4% in 2003.  

Key areas of research this year include:
• Objective 1: Evaluate effects of directly transporting steelhead kelts around the hydro system on enhancement of iteroparity.
• Objective 2: Evaluate effects of short-term kelt reconditioning and subsequent transportation of kelts around the hydro system on enhancement of iteroparity.
• Objective 3: Evaluate effects of long-term kelt reconditioning and subsequent release for natural spawning on enhancement of iteroparity.
• Objective 4: Evaluate effects of long-term kelt reconditioning and captive spawning on: a) gamete and progeny viability; and b) enhancement of iteroparity.
• Objective 5. Comprehensive project evaluation and management recommendations.

Kelt steelhead will be collected on the Yakima River with data collections made at Prosser Hatchery.  Steelhead will be assigned to no-term, short-term, and long-term experiment groups.  We will have two temporal replicates for the no-term experiment and two replicates for the short-term experiment.  This is the third year of monitoring movement in the lower Columbia River and estuary of steelhead in the "short-term" and "no-term" experiments.  Monitoring is conducted with PIT tags and surgically implanted acoustic tags.  Four acoustic arrays will be deployed in the lower Columbia River and detections at these arrays allow us to calculate survival, migration timing, velocity, and behavior.  Last year steelhead movement behavior seemed to generally fit into two patterns.  One pattern was directly moving through the estuary and into the ocean very quickly.  The second pattern consisted on fish that moved downstream and upstream in a pattern seemly acclimating to the estuary.  This year we are collecting data on blood plasma ion concentration and gill ATPase on fish prior to release.  We hope that these data will correlate with observed movement patterns and eventually lead to the development of predictor of movement.

Success indicators for the long-term reconditioning experiment include survival and rematuration.  Rematuration is determined using sonograms prior to release.  

Gamete and progeny viability analysis will be performed at the University of  Idaho on hatchery fish returning to Dworshak Hatchery.  These fish will then be held for reconditioning at Sweet Water Springs.  Following rematuration these fish will be spawned and gamete and progeny viability analysis performed in order to determine potential effects from artificial reconditioning.  This second spawning and analysis will be completed in the spring of 2007.

This is the first year in which we will have enough data to begin evaluating the relative effectiveness and efficiency of the different reconditioning strategies.  This analysis should provide managers with expected benefits and costs of various scenarios using kelt steelhead for restoration purposes.