The proposal was insufficient for review. The title of the proposal is misleading in that the establishment of biologically based escapement goals is never addressed. Rather, the proposal is to improve the procedures for enumerating adult fall Chinook salmon in the Deschutes River. A more appropriate title would be something like “Develop methods to improve escapement estimates for Deschutes River fall Chinook.” If the project sponsors choose to focus the goal as implied by this revised title, then the ISRP recommends that the justification for the determination of genetic composition of spawners needs more detail and data as described below (Section F). The objective to examine the feasibility of installing a PIT tag detector/array in the lower Deschutes River is an excellent idea but also needs more details (e.g. design and size of array? specific potential location(s)? power availability? etc.) to be fully justified.

If the project sponsors do wish to include the establishment of biologically based escapement goals, then they would need to significantly expand the proposal by adding two other objectives (with detailed study designs) to the proposal. One objective would be to examine potential hatchery fish effects of wild fall Chinook juveniles competing with hatchery and wild spring Chinook juveniles. Another objective would be to examine the carrying capacity of the river system (e.g. quantity and quality of available spawning habitat, food, rearing habitat, etc.) to estimate the potential population size of fall Chinook that may be supported.