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, west-side tributaries to the lower Deschutes River, Oregon.  Objectives were status and trend monitoring in which species distribution was established and monitored through time, and life-cycle monitoring, including abundance of outmigrants, adult escapement, redds , and relative abundance of juveniles rearing in streams.  

The Columbia River Fish Accords provided an opportunity to update baseline geographic distribution for both species, evaluate current methods of life cycle monitoring, and experiment with new methods to achieve greater understanding in salmon and steelhead production in Reservation streams and address concerns that have arisen from declining trends in spring Chinook (since 2000) and ESA-listed summer steelhead (since 2010).  Some of the new methods being used include collecting tissue samples for parentage analysis to determine the proportion of successful adults that contributed to production of progeny.  Tissue sampling within tributaries to perform parentage analyses on juveniles can inform us about production among tributaries.  Studies on distribution and densities of Ceratonova shasta spores in the Deschutes Basin indicated high levels during periods when adults and juvenile spring Chinook migrate.  Exposure to disease in combination with warm summer stream temperatures may be contributing to pre-spawn mortality of holding adult spring Chinook.  

In 2018 - 2019 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;
• Conduct redd counts for spring Chinook and steelhead in the WSR and SC watersheds using pre-existing index reaches and a rotating panel design, investigate observer error;
• Collect tissue samples of incoming adults from the WSR and SC weirs, outmigrating juveniles from RSTs, and juveniles in drainages without RSTs (e.g., Mill Creek) for parentage analysis;
• Participate in radio-telemetry studies of adult spring Chinook and summer steelhead with USFWS and ODFW;
• Participate in C. shasta studies with OSU Microbiology Dept. and US Fish & Wildlife Service by making observations at the rotary screw traps and freezing mortalities for fish pathologists to inspect, assisting with water-sample collection in Reservation streams and the mainstem Deschutes River.