The proponent needs to provide a more comprehensive proposal that describes and justifies the proposed monitoring and evaluation. Planning for this project would benefit from coordination with the Columbia River Hatchery Effects Evaluation Team project. The proposed program should be reviewed as part of the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan (LSRCP) and the Crystal Springs Step Review. The program needs to identify criteria, metrics, and methodology that will be used to evaluate success or failure of the supplementation. Please see additional comments below.

1. Purpose, Significance to Regional Programs, Technical Background, and Objectives

In 2004, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Department developed the Supplementation, Monitoring, & Evaluation Program (SMEP) to increase abundance of salmon and steelhead populations in the Salmon River Basin. The program is directed to identify populations at immediate risk of extinction and develop artificial propagation strategies designed to significantly increase adult abundance. Research, monitoring and evaluation are completed to assess benefits and risks associated with each supplementation strategy. The program currently includes four supplementation projects, but additional projects may be developed if additional populations are at high risk of extinction for abundance and productivity. Following the guidance of the Tribe, existing monitoring and evaluation plan, each supplementation project will be assessed so that operations can be adaptively managed to optimize hatchery and natural production, minimize ecological impacts, and sustain harvest. The program has been underway for a number of years through funding from a variety of sources, most recently the LSRCP. The intent of this proposal is to provide additional funding for the program to facilitate full participation in operations and maintenance and monitoring and evaluation. The effort to supplement Chinook and steelhead within the Salmon River subbasin is consistent with Fish and Wildlife Program, LSRCP, US v Oregon, and the Salmon River subbasin plan.

Technical Background: Incomplete. There is a brief narrative on the status of spring Chinook and steelhead in some of the watersheds that are proposed for treatment. However, the technical background is generally deficient in presenting the limitations of supplementation, the history of supplementation in the Salmon and Clearwater Rivers in Idaho, and other areas of the Columbia River Basin. The technical background does not clearly identify that at present there has been no evidence that supplementation can yield an increase in abundance of natural-origin adults, which needs to be the key response variable. The technical background should succinctly recognize the content in the Ad Hoc Supplementation report, and the various ISAB and ISRP reports on evaluating supplementation, and supplementation risks. An experimental design is needed to evaluate the supplementation effort. The streamside incubators, adult outplants, and smolt releases need to be conducted in such a way that they can be individually evaluated.

Relative reproductive success of hatchery versus natural salmon and steelhead is inadequate to evaluate supplementation success. The evaluation of supplementation requires a comparison of the trends in abundance of natural-origin salmon in supplemented and unsupplemented reference streams. The successful return of hatchery-origin adults is a necessary condition for supplementation to yield a benefit to the abundance of natural-origin salmon (measured in the next generation), but is not the measure of success. The return of the hatchery-origin adults is the treatment, and the response is natural-origin adults in the next generation. If there are density dependent (or other ecological constraints) limits on production then the progeny of hatchery-origin spawners may replace, not add to, the adults produced by natural-origin adults. Issues regarding Chinook minijacks should be discussed.

Objectives: Incomplete. The proposal needs clear objectives for adult returns of both hatchery and natural-origin salmon, an explanation of the disposition of those fish for harvest, hatchery propagation, and for natural spawning. If the PNI of the Chinook program is 0.30 this will be a hatchery driven population that could rapidly lose adaptation to the local environment, and long-term this goal is inconsistent with current best practices and the Fish and Wildlife Program. Enumeration of the metrics needed to estimate VSP parameters is justified.

2. History: Accomplishments, Results, and Adaptive Management

There is an adequate description of the past history of the project. It is clear from the presentation that insufficient attention has been given to experimental design, collecting monitoring data, and analysis. After releasing many thousand eyed-eggs and smolts, no results or interpretation are provided. There does not appear to be a robust monitoring plan for the eyed-egg component or evaluation of stream capacity. For example, with the large releases in the Yankee Fork they should carefully consider the implications if they do not get adult returns. They should consider otolith marks for the eyed-egg releases.

3. Project Relationships, Emerging Limiting Factors, and Tailored Questions for Type of Work (Hatchery, RME, Tagging)

Project Relationships: Incomplete. The relationship to many projects is provided, but linkages to other supplementation efforts in the Snake River are absent. From the map it appears that a portion of the project is geographically near Johnson Creek. The target populations may be near supplementation or reference sites for the ISS. All of this needs to be developed in a proposal.

The proponent should participate in the Columbia River Hatchery Effects Evaluation Team effort, adopt standardized measures and evaluation of supplementations, and include these sites in a basinwide evaluation of whether there are benefits to supplementation.

The HSRG has encouraged a sliding scale for collecting broodstock and permitting adult hatchery fish on the spawning grounds. They relax conservative guidelines when natural-origin abundance is small. The ISRP continues to point out that there is no empirical evidence that this sliding scale reduces extirpation likelihood. The sliding scale could be subject to an adaptive management experiment, but to date it has not.

An in depth consideration of the HSRG evaluation of supplementation by the Sho-Ban Tribe through the LSRCP and the USFWS evaluation of the program is beyond the time line for this proposal review. The ISRP is scheduled to serve as an independent reviewer of the LSRCP and anticipates complete top to bottom review of this effort through that process. The LSRCP review will take place over a three-year period, one species (ESU) per year, with spring Chinook in 2010, steelhead in 2011, and fall Chinook in 2012.

4. Deliverables, Work Elements, Metrics, and Methods

Incomplete. The methods and metrics need to be sufficient to evaluate the supplementation effort. An explicit experimental design with response variables, metrics to evaluate those variables, methods of analysis, and field methods to collect the data with sufficient precision and accuracy is needed. It is not clear who would conduct all of the proposed efforts. No reports from previous efforts of the project (funded by other agencies) were provided.

The proponent needs to provide a more comprehensive proposal that describes and justifies the proposed monitoring and evaluation. Planning for this project would benefit from coordination with the Columbia River Hatchery Effects Evaluation Team project. The proposed program should be reviewed as part of the Lower Snake River Compensation Plan (LSRCP) and the Crystal Springs Step Review. The program needs to identify criteria, metrics, and methodology that will be used to evaluate success or failure of the supplementation. Please see additional comments below. 1. Purpose, Significance to Regional Programs, Technical Background, and Objectives In 2004, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Department developed the Supplementation, Monitoring, & Evaluation Program (SMEP) to increase abundance of salmon and steelhead populations in the Salmon River Basin. The program is directed to identify populations at immediate risk of extinction and develop artificial propagation strategies designed to significantly increase adult abundance. Research, monitoring and evaluation are completed to assess benefits and risks associated with each supplementation strategy. The program currently includes four supplementation projects, but additional projects may be developed if additional populations are at high risk of extinction for abundance and productivity. Following the guidance of the Tribe, existing monitoring and evaluation plan, each supplementation project will be assessed so that operations can be adaptively managed to optimize hatchery and natural production, minimize ecological impacts, and sustain harvest. The program has been underway for a number of years through funding from a variety of sources, most recently the LSRCP. The intent of this proposal is to provide additional funding for the program to facilitate full participation in operations and maintenance and monitoring and evaluation. The effort to supplement Chinook and steelhead within the Salmon River subbasin is consistent with Fish and Wildlife Program, LSRCP, US v Oregon, and the Salmon River subbasin plan. Technical Background: Incomplete. There is a brief narrative on the status of spring Chinook and steelhead in some of the watersheds that are proposed for treatment. However, the technical background is generally deficient in presenting the limitations of supplementation, the history of supplementation in the Salmon and Clearwater Rivers in Idaho, and other areas of the Columbia River Basin. The technical background does not clearly identify that at present there has been no evidence that supplementation can yield an increase in abundance of natural-origin adults, which needs to be the key response variable. The technical background should succinctly recognize the content in the Ad Hoc Supplementation report, and the various ISAB and ISRP reports on evaluating supplementation, and supplementation risks. An experimental design is needed to evaluate the supplementation effort. The streamside incubators, adult outplants, and smolt releases need to be conducted in such a way that they can be individually evaluated. Relative reproductive success of hatchery versus natural salmon and steelhead is inadequate to evaluate supplementation success. The evaluation of supplementation requires a comparison of the trends in abundance of natural-origin salmon in supplemented and unsupplemented reference streams. The successful return of hatchery-origin adults is a necessary condition for supplementation to yield a benefit to the abundance of natural-origin salmon (measured in the next generation), but is not the measure of success. The return of the hatchery-origin adults is the treatment, and the response is natural-origin adults in the next generation. If there are density dependent (or other ecological constraints) limits on production then the progeny of hatchery-origin spawners may replace, not add to, the adults produced by natural-origin adults. Issues regarding Chinook minijacks should be discussed. Objectives: Incomplete. The proposal needs clear objectives for adult returns of both hatchery and natural-origin salmon, an explanation of the disposition of those fish for harvest, hatchery propagation, and for natural spawning. If the PNI of the Chinook program is 0.30 this will be a hatchery driven population that could rapidly lose adaptation to the local environment, and long-term this goal is inconsistent with current best practices and the Fish and Wildlife Program. Enumeration of the metrics needed to estimate VSP parameters is justified. 2. History: Accomplishments, Results, and Adaptive Management There is an adequate description of the past history of the project. It is clear from the presentation that insufficient attention has been given to experimental design, collecting monitoring data, and analysis. After releasing many thousand eyed-eggs and smolts, no results or interpretation are provided. There does not appear to be a robust monitoring plan for the eyed-egg component or evaluation of stream capacity. For example, with the large releases in the Yankee Fork they should carefully consider the implications if they do not get adult returns. They should consider otolith marks for the eyed-egg releases. 3. Project Relationships, Emerging Limiting Factors, and Tailored Questions for Type of Work (Hatchery, RME, Tagging) Project Relationships: Incomplete. The relationship to many projects is provided, but linkages to other supplementation efforts in the Snake River are absent. From the map it appears that a portion of the project is geographically near Johnson Creek. The target populations may be near supplementation or reference sites for the ISS. All of this needs to be developed in a proposal. The proponent should participate in the Columbia River Hatchery Effects Evaluation Team effort, adopt standardized measures and evaluation of supplementations, and include these sites in a basinwide evaluation of whether there are benefits to supplementation. The HSRG has encouraged a sliding scale for collecting broodstock and permitting adult hatchery fish on the spawning grounds. They relax conservative guidelines when natural-origin abundance is small. The ISRP continues to point out that there is no empirical evidence that this sliding scale reduces extirpation likelihood. The sliding scale could be subject to an adaptive management experiment, but to date it has not. An in depth consideration of the HSRG evaluation of supplementation by the Sho-Ban Tribe through the LSRCP and the USFWS evaluation of the program is beyond the time line for this proposal review. The ISRP is scheduled to serve as an independent reviewer of the LSRCP and anticipates complete top to bottom review of this effort through that process. The LSRCP review will take place over a three-year period, one species (ESU) per year, with spring Chinook in 2010, steelhead in 2011, and fall Chinook in 2012. 4. Deliverables, Work Elements, Metrics, and Methods Incomplete. The methods and metrics need to be sufficient to evaluate the supplementation effort. An explicit experimental design with response variables, metrics to evaluate those variables, methods of analysis, and field methods to collect the data with sufficient precision and accuracy is needed. It is not clear who would conduct all of the proposed efforts. No reports from previous efforts of the project (funded by other agencies) were provided.

Our response is addressed in the re-modification of this proposal.