Executive Summary

What - This project is now set forth in the Critical Path Work Plan from which the FY 09 SOW, work elements and milestones will be derived. The product will be a comprehensive compilation and review of information on tagging, telemetry and marking techniques for fish. Currently, fishery management programs use a variety of tagging, telemetry and marking techniques to track animals during rearing and migration life phases, but typically answer an individual or limited number of questions using probability statistics. In some cases, this does not provide satisfactory information to understand sources of data variability or other factors such as atypical mortality or provide probable causes and corrective actions. Nor are these programs able to provide regionally comparable or spatially relevant information.  The objective of PNAMP’s Tagging, Telemetry, Remote Sensing and Marking Techniques Compilation Project (TCP) is to move away from short-comings of non-comparable data by growing comparability across individual and/or subregional stock information for regional, population and or fishery management inferences using current designs or methods.

Why - Fishery managers throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond currently rely on natural “intrinsic” or human applied “extrinsic” identification methods to distinguish individual animals or groups of animals of interest. The “data” have important implications in many diverse biological and ecological science and policy forums. These approaches both rely on the assumption that individual animals are representative of the population from which they originate and thus provide unbiased data within the study design. Yet, both intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to animal identification have pros and cons, as information can be in improperly interpreted or applied resulting in bias or misinformed management actions.

It has been over twenty years since the last effort to provide a comprehensive compilation of the information available on advances in tagging, telemetry and marking techniques. It is unknown if, or which, methods accurately measure performance benchmarks. This confounds efforts of scientists and management executives to evaluate actions and gauge the effect of regional recovery, mitigation, trust and or enhancement programs. Research, monitoring and evaluation is also used to permit specific actions and programs that may threaten viable and sustainable populations or jeopardize species altogether. These evaluations are required under a multiplicity of Acts, laws, international treaties, adjudications and voluntary programs.

Given these needs and the consequences, it is clear that dissimilar designs and methods cannot provide data of sufficient inferential power.  It is necessary to improve this situation and objectively assess the current state of the science and its implied knowledge.  Therefore, a compilation that reviews up-to-date information and an assessment of supplementary and or new methods while simple in nature is of high relevance.

This need was articulated over six years ago and has been continually re-enforced by managers, researchers, practitioners, professional societies and most, if not all, population monitoring programs.  The techniques and their many possible combinations number in the hundreds. Consequently, the Fish Population Monitoring Work Group’s review and findings will inform and improve future TTM designs.

The compilation, investigative and product path outlined in this plan are necessary to optimize the use of tagging, telemetry and or marking technology and designs. The findings will then be reviewed and communicated widely. PNAMP believes this will improve the opportunity for data collection to provide more reliable information and result in improved analyses and more informed decisions.

How - To address this priority the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership Steering Committee and its Fish Population Monitoring Work Group developed and approved The Tagging, Telemetry & Marking Techniques Compilation Project in 2005. To date over 100 expert practitioners and managers from around the globe provided submissions in response to the First Call for Contributions. This outreach effort will continue with expanded requests for case studies, published and unpublished data. A comprehensive database and Networked Information System queries to generate the largest possible sample of tagging, telemetry, and marking techniques. The Critical Path work plan and appendices explain how this information will be compiled, organized, and assessed to make it available to regional scientists and others. The compilation is not intended to be prescriptive or propose “standardized” methods. Rather, the TCP will jointly examine the data and its potential over the next 18- months. During this time the TCP will generally continue to prepare for some form of e-publication, report, and or other form of information organization and dissemination process.

Specifically, the Fish Population Monitoring Work Group has identified milestones and technical products to provide information addressing high level management questions.
Accordingly the Techniques Compilation Project will describe contemporary methods and protocols and provide the basis for consideration and prospective use in an integrated and regionally comparable set of data products.

What - The scope of the Techniques Compilation Project includes all populations of Pacific Salmon and many marine and resident fishes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia and Northern California. The scale, as initially assessed, is that tagging, telemetry and/or marking techniques, technology, protocols, and their methods are used by over thirty-one (31) population monitoring divisions/subdivisions of state, federal, provincial, tribal, and private agencies and organizations. Encompass the single most used fish population monitoring tool for contemporary and priority management decisions.

Keywords: Fish Population Monitoring; Tagging; Telemetry, Marking; Techniques; Methods, Protocols, Technology; Case Studies; Research; Benchmarks and Performance; Genetic Stock Identification; Harvest; Preseason Forecasting; Post Season Evaluation; Escapement; SAR; Hatchery Evaluation; Restoration and Protection Action Effectiveness; Passage; Survival; Analytical Procedures; Status and Trend; ESA, Mitigation; Conservation; Enhancement; Collaboration, and,  Networked Information Sharing Systems.