Mission

The Salmon River Basin Nutrient Enhancement (SRBNE) project will pursue an ecosystem-based restoration approach to increase aquatic habitat complexity and productivity through the addition of marine-derived subsidies (e.g., live Chinook Salmon, Chinook Salmon carcasses, steelhead trout carcasses, salmon carcass analogs, and/or inorganic N and P) and habitat forming, natural in-stream materials (e.g., large wood), or other process-based habitat actions, to address identified limiting factors and support Tribal goals and objectives.  By merging physical habitat actions with marine-derived subsidies, the SRBNE project seeks to alleviate limiting factors and support the ecological integrity (chemical, physical, and biological) of tributary habitats in the upper Salmon River subbasin.  The SRBNE project will also coordinate, in collaboration with Tribal projects and the YF IDT, the development of a comprehensive YF Watershed Plan to identify, select, prioritize, and implement actions that directly support Tribal recovery goals.  The YF Watershed Plan will focus on salmon conservation approaches that utilize sound science, integrate traditional ecological knowledge, harmonize with and center Tribal goals, and respect Tribal heritage and traditional cultural practices.  All project activities will strive to support the protection, preservation, and where appropriate, the enhancement of Rights reserved by the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes under the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 and any inherent aboriginal rights.

Vision and Goals of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Fish and Wildlife Department

“The Tribes will pursue, promote, and where necessary, initiate efforts to restore the Snake River systems and affected unoccupied lands to a natural condition.  This includes the restoration of component resources to conditions which most closely represent the ecological features associated with a natural riverine ecosystem.  In addition, the Tribes will work to ensure the protection , preservation, and where appropriate the enhancement of Rights reserved by the Tribes under the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 and any inherent aboriginal rights.”

Goal 1)  Restoration of Traditional Social-Ecological Systems
The Tribes envision a healthy ecosystem that includes productive, functional watersheds and diverse, self-sustaining fish and wildlife populations.  Guided by traditional ecological knowledge and systems of management, the Tribes will leverage generations of interdependence with salmon and multigenerational placed based knowledge to center social-ecological systems in process-based principles for restoring river ecosystems that support culturally and ecologically resilient fisheries.

Goal 2)  Traditional Fishing Opportunities
The Tribes seek to revitalize traditional systems of salmon management and restore significant place-based fishing opportunities informed by tygi/hoawai (to hunt) practices that integrate intergenerational-learning and traditional teachings.  In doing so, the Tribes will support collaborative pathways toward effective and socially just conservation and resource management.

Goal 3)  Connection with and Protection of Cultural, Ecological, and Social Values and Rights
Salmon and steelhead are integral to the culture and society of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes.  Through traditional systems of salmon management, the Tribes will highlight social-ecological systems and stewardship practices that protect, enhance, and restore our culture, spiritual beliefs, families, and ecological communities.  The Tribes will honor our traditional stories about lands, waterways, animals, and plants through our language, cultural values, and tygi/hoawai.  In doing so, the Tribes will actively participate in sustainable fisheries and support healthy fishing communities.

Background

Pacific salmon, steelhead trout, and Pacific lamprey are essential cultural, economic, and ecological resources throughout the Pacific Northwest (PNW).  Historically, returns of anadromous fishes conditioned physical habitats (Moore 2006) and provided pulsed allochthonous subsidies (i.e., nutrients and organic materials) to inland aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems (Wipfli and Baxter 2010).  Currently, declining returns of anadromous fishes are associated with reduced marine-derived nutrient (MDN) subsidies and diminished ecosystem productivities that may constrain contemporary habitat carrying capacities (Alldredge et al. 2015).  Due to factors such as habitat degradation and loss, commercial harvest, hatchery production, and hydro-system development, historically abundant anadromous fish returns have been eliminated or have declined dramatically across large spatial scales (Lichatowich 1999).  It is now estimated that spawning Pacific salmon and steelhead trout contribute just 6%-7% of the MDN historically delivered to PNW streams and rivers (Gresh et al. 2000).

The Salmon River Basin Nutrient Enhancement project collects chemical, physical, and biological data to evaluate the efficacy of marine-derived nutrient additions (e.g., live Chinook Salmon, Chinook Salmon carcasses, or Salmon Carcass Analogs) and habitat actions (e.g., large wood additions and salmon subsidies) designed to increase freshwater productivity and the growth and survival of stream-dwelling salmonids in the upper Salmon River Basin.  Specific project objectives include the quantification and assessment of: streamwater nutrient concentrations; nutrient limitation; biofilm standing stock; macroinvertebrate (benthic and drift) density, biomass, and community composition; salmonid fish abundance, biomass, growth, and community composition; river metabolism measures; stable isotope measures (biofilm, macroinvertebrate, and fish); and aquatic food web connections in streams receiving nutrient additions and/or physical habitat actions and reference streams that do not receive these forms of management actions.  In addition, the SRBNE project is directly involved in efforts to identify, prioritize, implement, monitor, and evaluate habitat and production efforts to support recovery efforts and traditional cultural practices.  Central to this effort will be the development of a YF Watershed Plan (The Plan) that addresses the complex challenges facing native anadromous and resident fish populations in the region, while also supporting Tribal cultural practices such as traditional harvest. The Plan represents a Tribal-centric, culturally competent approach to protect, enhance, and restore native anadromous and resident fish populations at the watershed scale.  By integrating past and present management activities with current scientific understanding, traditional ecological knowledge, process-based habitat approaches, life-cycle models, a better understanding of density dependence, and innovative production techniques, The Plan will establish a comprehensive approach to salmon conservation that supports Tribal practices and provides for meaningful harvest.  At its core, The Plan will analyze and evaluate watershed conditions (habitat and associated food webs) and salmon population dynamics (abundance, productivity, diversity, and spatial structure) to guide the identification of limiting factors (e.g., density dependence) and prioritize critical habitat actions.  In addition, The Plan will outline strategic and innovative production methods such as adult outplants, eggbox programs, and parr and smolt releases.  By combining population dynamics, habitat, and production strategies, The Plan will identify constraints but also highlight synergies that increase habitat productivity and capacity, enhance local adaptation, utilize the full extent of natal spawning and rearing habitat, promote diverse life-histories, consider issues of density dependence, and ultimately increase adult escapement to meet goals explicitly determined by the Tribes.  By integrating ecological restoration with cultural indigenous knowledge and preservation, the approach developed in The Plan seeks to create a sustainable framework (i.e., future multiple, coordinated Watershed Plans) for salmon recovery that not only supports listed anadromous fishes, but also reinforces and respects Tribal heritage and traditional practices.

Goals and Objectives

Actions proposed under this project address habitat metrics identified in the 2020 Biological Opinion for the Continued Operation and Maintenance of the Columbia River System (NOAA Fisheries 2020) and focus on limiting factors in tributaries of the Yankee Fork Salmon River watershed.  Habitat actions have been planned and designed to restore the physical, hydraulic, and ecological integrity of freshwater spawning and rearing habitats for ESA listed resident (Salvelinus confluentus) and anadromous (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha; Oncorynchus mykiss) fishes.  The specific, short-term goal of this work is to implement effective and innovative approaches to salmon habitat restoration that directly address limiting factors and increase freshwater productivity and habitat carrying capacity.  The long-term goal of this work is to: foster collaboration with State and Federal natural resource managers; generate sound, scientific information relevant to the protection and restoration of aquatic and linked riparian ecosystems; and assess the efficacy of implemented habitat actions at improving habitat conditions and fish production in the Yankee Fork Salmon River (YFSR) watershed.  

Specific objectives include the development of a YF Watershed Plan (as described above).  The Plan will utilize existing and currently developing resources to identify, assess, measure, and model limiting factors and ecological concerns identified in: a) the Yankee Fork Tributary Assessment Upper Salmon Subbasin (Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) 2012); b) the Yankee Fork Fluvial Habitat Rehabilitation Plan (BOR 2013); c) the Salmon Subbasin Management Plan (Ecovista 2004); d) the 2020 Biological Opinion for the Continued Operation and Maintenance of the Columbia River System (NOAA Fisheries 2020), e) the Yankee Fork Salmon River Interdisciplinary Team Project Prioritization Framework (Draft 5-Year Plan (2024); f) the YF Aquatic Trophic Productivity model; and g) the YF thermal infrared modeling report (in development).  The Plan will also model YF salmon and steelhead population dynamics to better understand the mechanisms causing density dependence, develop biologically informed escapement and harvest goals, and to guide habitat restoration and population recovery actions.

In 2025-2026 the SRBNE project will continue to coordinate with the YFSR IDT and associated SBT projects to assess, model, plan, and implement habitat and production actions that address limiting factors in tributary habitats of the YFSR and increase the abundance and productivity of ESA-listed species.  In order to effectively identify, prioritize, and select potential habitat restoration projects at the watershed scale, the YFSR IDT will rely heavily on a rigorous M & E framework and the development of a comprehensive watershed plan.  To this end, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Yankee Fork Watershed Plan (draft; in preparation) will provide a comprehensive and systematic approach to assess the health and population dynamics of these critical fish species and also monitor linked terrestrial and aquatic habitats.  The plan will integrate both field and laboratory methods to gather data on population abundance and productivity, community composition, distribution, genetic diversity, and habitat conditions. Regular population monitoring through techniques such as electrofishing, snorkel surveys, PIT tag arrays, spawning ground surveys, adult weir and juvenile RST monitoring, and genetic sampling (e.g., tissue and eDNA) will enable a real-time assessment of population status and trends.  Additionally, environmental and ecosystem parameters like water temperature, discharge, nutrient concentrations, food web productivity, trophic status, and habitat quantity and quality will be monitored.  The plan will incorporate a robust data analysis framework to identify patterns and trends over time.  A critical component of this monitoring effort is also the identification of limiting factors (i.e., Limiting Factor Analysis), which involves identifying and addressing factors that may be constraining the recovery of salmonid populations.  Factors such as habitat degradation, pollution, climate change impacts, and human activities are assessed to determine their influence on the species' overall well-being.  To support this effort, the SRBNE project will contract a remote sensing survey (i.e., green LiDAR) to generate highly accurate channel and associated floodplain elevational datasets for the mainstem YFSR and WFYF.  A watershed scale topo-bathymetric LiDAR dataset will support current and future habitat restoration efforts, assist with carrying capacity and LCM modeling, and also support action effectiveness and implementation monitoring.  Moreover, current channel unit and floodplain LiDAR datasets can be used to compare geomorphic change detection to past surveys, to benchmark geomorphic conditions for future analyses, and to help identify limiting factors.  The analysis aids in the development of targeted conservation strategies and adaptive management practices to mitigate the identified limiting factors and enhance the resilience of ESA-listed and native resident salmonids.  Regular updates and reviews (e.g., YFSR IDT meetings) will help to ensure the plan's effectiveness and adaptability in the face of evolving ecological and social challenges.  Project staff will continue to concurrently evaluate the importance of marine-derived nutrients, primary productivity, and secondary and tertiary production to the quantity and quality of habitats supporting native resident and Endangered Species Act (ESA) listed fishes in the upper Salmon River Basin.  

Habitat actions in 2025-2026 will include the addition of marine-derived nutrient subsidies such as live Chinook Salmon, Chinook Salmon carcasses, steelhead trout carcasses, and/or Salmon Carcass Analogs.  Out-year planning includes the addition of habitat-forming natural material in-stream structures such as large wood, as well as other process-based restoration techniques.  Large wood, or natural-material in-stream structure additions, will combine with stream flows and salmon subsides (i.e., marine-derived nutrients) to create the processes that: increase coarse sediment storage, retain and sort gravel and cobble substrates for spawning habitat, improve flow heterogeneity, provide diverse stream velocities, increase stream depth complexity, increase habitat complexity, increase fish cover, provide refugia for fish during high flows, provide long-term nutrient storage and substrate for aquatic macroinvertebrates, increase retention of leaf litter, and retain fine and coarse organic matter (energy and nutrients).  The combination of these actions will promote the ecological integrity of YFSR tributary habitats and increase primary, secondary, and tertiary production.  In concert, these physical and functional habitat outcomes will increase freshwater productivity and the growth and survival of resident and anadromous ESA listed species.  These actions are intended to support viable salmonid population parameters and will hopefully increase Tribal harvest opportunities.

All habitat assessments, habitat action planning, and habitat action implementation will be done in collaboration and coordination with the YFSR IDT.  All habitat actions will follow BPA HIP guidelines and conservation measures.  Through this collaborative process, the SRBNE project will work to identify limiting factors and habitat impairments and to select, prioritize, and implement future habitat actions.  Implemented projects will have robust monitoring plans in place to help inform managers of specific project outcomes and to effectively utilize an adaptive management approach guided by lessons learned.

The 2025-2026 contract will include coordination with other SBT and contractor lead projects in the YFSR to monitor habitat and fish populations, analyze data collected in previous contract cycles, assess habitat action implementation (e.g., EMC), and assist with SBT production efforts and associated monitoring and evaluation (e.g., eggbox outplants and progeny production/productivity).  In addition, the SRBNE project will contract with BPA and Biomark to install 2 instream PIT Arrays in Bear Valley Creek and East Fork Salmon River, both areas of active management for the Tribes.

Coordination efforts include, but are not limited to:

1)  Salmon subsidy additions
2)  Electrofishing surveys
3)  Development of status and trend (fish in fish out) updates, modeling tools, and data dashboard tools
4)  Chinook Salmon redd surveys
5)  Habitat evaluations (e.g., NV5 Geospatial TIR modeling to characterize winter thermal conditions)
6)  Project selection, prioritization, and implementation plan development and refinement
7)  Production efforts such as Chinook Salmon eggbox outplants and associated monitoring and evaluations
8)  Installation of PIT arrays
9)  Acquisition of topo-bathymetric LiDAR datasets

Relevant Project Peer-Reviewed Publications:

•    Stream food web response to a salmon carcass analogue addition in two central Idaho, U.S.A. streams

Andre E. Kohler*, Amanda Rugenski†, Doug Taki*
*Shoshone Bannock Tribes, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Fort Hall, ID, U.S.A.
†Idaho State University, Stream Ecology Center, Pocatello, ID, U.S.A.
Freshwater Biology (2008) 53: 446–460; doi:10.1111/j.1365-2427.2007.01909.x
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2266089/

•    Macroinvertebrate response to salmon carcass analogue treatments: exploring the relative influence of nutrient enrichment, stream foodweb, and environmental variables

Andre E. Kohler and Doug Taki
Shoshone Bannock Tribes, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Fort Hall, Idaho 83203 USA
J. N. Am. Benthol. Soc., 2010, 29(2): 690–710; 2010 by The North American Benthological Society; DOI: 10.1899/09-091.1; Published online: 6 April 2010
http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1899/09-091.1

•    Nutrient Enrichment with Salmon Carcass Analogs in the Columbia River Basin, USA: A Stream Food Web Analysis

Andre E. Kohler, Todd N. Pearsons, Joseph S. Zendt, Matthew G. Mesa, Christopher L. Johnson, Patrick J. Connolly
Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 141: 802–824, 2012
American Fisheries Society 2012
DOI: 10.1080/00028487.2012.676380
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00028487.2012.676380#.VS0klPBi_64

•    Salmon-mediated nutrient flux in selected streams of the Columbia River basin, USA

Andre E. Kohler, Paul C. Kusnierz, Timothy Copeland, David A. Venditti, Lytle Denny, Josh Gable, Bert A. Lewis, Ryan Kinzer, Bruce Barnett, Mark S. Wipfli
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 70: 502–512 (2013) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2012-0347
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfas-2012-0347#.VS0j8_Bi_64

•    Biofilm nutrient limitation, metabolism, and standing crop responses to experimental application of salmon carcass analog in Idaho streams

Jonathan D. Ebel, Amy M. Marcarelli, Andre E. Kohler
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 71: 1-9 (2014) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2014-0266
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfas-2014-0266 - .VS0it_Bi_65

•    Bioenergetic calculations evaluate changes to habitat quality for salmonid fishes in streams treated with salmon carcass analog

Ernest R Keeley, Steven O Campbell, Andre E. Kohler
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 73: 1–13 (2016) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2015-0265
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1139/cjfas-2015-0265

•    The fate of marine-derived nutrients: tracing d13C and d15N through oligotrophic freshwater and linked riparian ecosystems following salmon carcass analog additions

David P. Richardson, Andre E. Kohler, Million Hailemichael, and Bruce P. Finney
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 73: 1–15 (2016) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2015-050
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/cjfas-2015-0500#.WFLofpJzYzk

•    Salmon-mediated nutrient flux in Snake River sockeye salmon nursery lakes: the influence of depressed population size and hatchery supplementation

Melissa L. Evans, Andre E. Kohler, Robert G. Griswold, Kurt A. Tardy, Kendra R. Eaton, and Jonathan D. Ebel
Lake and Reservoir Management (2019).
http://doi.org/10.1080/10402391.2019.1654571