Most of the work in the proposal is a continuation of the same type of work that began in 2000. The ISRP's 2000 review indicated that the proposed work should be able to be completed in 3-4 years, followed by a final report. At present, the work has been ongoing for six years. The sponsors have not provided adequate justification for continuing the full scope of the work for 2007-09. They have not published the work in a peer-reviewed journal, as requested in earlier reviews.

The proposal has several shortcomings. Results of work completed to date (Project History section) needed to be organized by objectives of the original proposal, and a synthesis of results to date and major conclusions should have been given. Well-identified and justified objectives also are lacking. The methods for each proposed objective needed to be more clearly explained and data analyses needed to be more clearly developed.

The fieldwork component of this project should be terminated and the sponsors should proceed with development of a management plan for lamprey. Objective #4, which is to "finalize the comprehensive adaptive management plan for restoring Pacific lamprey in Idaho," is the only part of the proposal that should be funded.

The decline of lamprey in Idaho is clearly a problem that needs resolution. The proposal provided good background material on where lampreys historically occurred in Idaho and gave some results from the proponents past work.

After stating that "[p]opulations of Pacific lamprey in Idaho appear to be on a precipitous decline which could result in extinction in Idaho," and presenting statistics to support this, the sponsors recount the project's long history of investigation into the status of lamprey populations. Toward the end of the section, they allude to some probable causes of the decline (e.g., deteriorated water quality, construction of dams). It would have improved the usefulness of this section -- and of the whole proposal -- if a clearer and more emphatic statement was given of the ultimate (undoubtedly anthropogenic) causes of lamprey decline, which is the true problem. The section ends with the assertion that "[a]dditional basic life history, distribution, and remaining population status are urgently needed to increase understanding of this species and to further implement intensive management before remaining populations decline to critical, unrecoverable threshold in Idaho." The truly urgent need would seem to be determination of the reasons for lamprey decline -- and then to deal with those causes.

The proposal addresses several objectives related to anadromous fish in three subbasin plans. This section does not adequately explain why the project needs to gather more information on the lamprey populations. The need would seem to be for information about the external factors causing lamprey decline and about how to remedy those causes.

The project is coordinated with the lamprey technical working group. The proposal would be improved if connections to other closely related projects in the subbasins were made. There is no discussion of whether the Clearwater and the other projects have adopted similar sampling protocols.

A great deal of information is presented, but it should be organized by objectives in the original proposal so that progress toward accomplishing the objectives can be assessed. The sponsors should synthesize the results and state major conclusions of the work to date. The project history should provide a clear justification for future work.

The narrative does not present results related to the listed accomplishments at the beginning of the Project History section. Specifically, information on life history characteristics and habitat utilization and preference are not presented. The sponsors state in the Project Relationship section that their project has worked to "determine the limiting factors impacting Pacific lamprey and develop redd survey index reaches." But there was no discussion of limiting factors or results of redd surveys. The rationale for selection of sampling sites needs to be explained. Tables 1 and 2 refer in their captions to "presence-absence surveys" of lamprey, but the data seem to involve numbers of lamprey captured and population densities, not presence or absence at sites.

The sponsors state that it is unknown whether the populations are nearing extinction. How will population status relative to probability of extinction be known before extinction occurs? Is enough known about demographics to conduct a PVA?

The objectives are too general and not well focused. For example, one objective is to "study all aspects of lamprey in Idaho." The objectives should be restricted to number 4: Finalize Pacific Lamprey Conservation/Management Plan for Management/Conservation of populations in Idaho--and possibly also number 5: 5: Reintroduce Pacific lamprey into the historically occupied Clearwater subbasin, Potlatch River drainage, Idaho and monitor the population.

The sponsors might have given some thought to development of a randomized sampling plan that might be used to derive an estimate of the total population (or subpopulations) of lamprey.

Tasks (work elements) and methods: The methods should be ordered by objective. For example, what methods will be used to determine life history characteristics (Objective 1) and how will this data be analyzed? How will population distribution, population trends, and status (define) be determined (Objective 2)? How often will sampling occur? How and why were 35 monitoring sites chosen in Clearwater and 50 in Salmon River?

The sponsors need to explain the "nonrandom methodology" and why it was settled upon as a sampling scheme. What is the habitat classification scheme that will be used? The sponsors state that field crews will select sampling sites likely to be occupied by lamprey. How will this approach lead to an unbiased measure of distribution and abundance?

Why not install continuously recording thermographs to determine temperature. Given variability of water temperature, a single temperature measurement taken at the time of sampling will be virtually meaningless.

What life history/population parameters, besides outmigration timing, will be determined from the from the rotary trap data? Is trap efficiency sufficient to obtain a reliable estimate of population parameters? How will population sampling be undertaken in the mainstem Snake?

The data analysis section is not well written, and it seems as through the sponsors have not thought carefully about appropriate analyses. How will habitat utilization and preference be determined? Consultation with a statistician and careful review and editing of this section is warranted.

The introduction of lamprey into the Potlach River needs to be justified. What is the purpose of the introduction? Why was this river chosen? The sponsors state that little is known about genetic structure of populations yet propose to introduce fish from as a far away as the Willamette. Given the lack of knowledge of genetic structure and the current emphasis on supplementing natural stocks with genetically and phenotypically similar stocks, how can the proposed introductions be justified?

There are no methods associated with completion of the Conservation Plan (Objective 4). The sponsors should describe this Plan, its purpose, and its elements. The proposed method is to "utilize the habitat utilization, distribution, and status information from proposed objectives 1-7 [doesn't this information exist from previous years?] to formulate guidelines for the habitat needed for persistence of the species, current limitations to persistence, and management actions necessary to conserve the species in the Snake River subbasin." It is questionable whether management guidelines can be based on such population information alone. The need is for analysis of environmental processes, particularly human-generated ones, that are causing the population decline, and for a plan to eliminate or reduce those adverse processes.

Results from the present monitoring should be explained.

Facilities seem adequate, but the qualifications of the personnel were not given in the narrative. Information transfer is well specified. Data are being archived and are available on a website. Plans for peer-reviewed publications are given, but there was no indication of any publications to date in the proposal. Plans for information transfer to stakeholders seem well developed.

This project will yield data on lampreys, but it should be better integrated with similar projects in the Columbia River basin.

The sponsors should be aware of effects of trapping and electrofishing on other focal species such as salmonids and non-focal species such as non-salmonids and mammals. The sponsors do not discuss what precautions would be taken to reduce effects on non-target species.