Beginning in the 1970's, The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon (CTWSRO) began monitoring spring Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and summer steelhead (O. mykiss) populations within the Warm Springs River (WSR) and Shitike Creek (SC) watersheds, westside tributaries to the lower Deschutes River, Oregon.  Data collection since has included:  out-migrant trapping, adult escapement estimates, and redd counts.  More recently (starting in 2006) monitoring has included snorkel surveys to determine juvenile rearing densities.  Information collected to date has been useful for assessing population trends, although validation to determine what proportion of the population index reaches represent has been lacking.  Moreover, study designs cannot be expanded to describe population status.  The Columbia River Fish Accords provides an opportunity to update baseline geographic distribution, for both species, and evaluation current methods to improve on Reservation life cycle monitoring.  These improvements include:  determining the feasibility for attaining new information on population dynamics (e.g., growth rates, survival, migration timing to the Columbia River); adjustments to current experimental designs so juvenile rearing density estimates and redd counts are representative of each population’s geographic distribution and associated habitat features; and ensure data quality is sufficient to calculate smolt-to-adult ratios, adult escapement, and fish per redd ratios.  Using an adaptive approach, based on feedback learning from annual data and methods review confidence in reporting population status and trends will be improved.  Warm Springs River out-migrant abundance estimates will be improved by the addition of a rotary-screw trap (RST) upstream of Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery (WSNFH; RKM 18).  This RST will preclude the need to remove the trap during times when smolts are being released from WSNFH.  Replacement of the SC picket weir (PW; RKM 1.4) with a resistance board weir (RBW) is expected to improve escapement estimate precision.  An effort to model the relationships between species abundance and environmental variables will aid in identifying the natural range of variation in spring Chinook and steelhead populations in Reservation streams.  Information gained through this project will be used to meet the CTWSRO Fisheries Department goals of sustainable, harvestable levels of culturally significant species for perpetuity.  In order to meet this goal the CTWSRO will develop a plan for improvements to data collection, verification, analysis and dissemination.  This information will be used by fisheries and habitat managers to ensure that bottlenecks to the population (e.g., harvest regulations, addressing habitat limiting factors) are addressed.

In 2015 - 2016 the objectives are to:
Install, operate, maintain, and remove rotary screw traps in the WSR and SC for the spring and fall out-migration period for spring Chinook and steelhead;
Insert PIT tags into juvenile spring Chinook and O. mykiss collected in the WSR and SC RST;
Enter PIT tag data into PTAGIS;
Operate a permanent full duplex PIT tag monitoring site in the WSR and SC;
Operate and maintain a resistance-board weir in SC to monitor upstream movements of summer steelhead and spring Chinook;
Determine redd distribution for spring Chinook and steelhead in the WSR and SC watersheds;
Collect scales to verify length at age information for both spring Chinook and steelhead in the WSR and SC watersheds;
Conduct redd counts for spring Chinook and steelhead in the WSR and SC watersheds using pre-existing index reaches and a rotating panel design;
Conduct juvenile distribution surveys for spring Chinook and steelhead in the WSR and SC watersheds;
Conduct snorkel surveys to determine juvenile densities for spring Chinook and steelhead in the Badger Creek and Warm Springs River; and
Determine species assemblage in the lower WSR.