1. Technical Justification, Program Significance and Consistency, and Project Relationships
The need for the monitoring of hatchery salmon and steelhead performance once released is an essential feature of management obligations to evaluate the efficacy of the artificial production programs in terms of their yields to fisheries and impacts to natural population. The ISAB/ISRP, as well as the Pacific Salmon Commission technical team, recently concluded that Parental Based Tagging (PBT) has the potential to provide important data for cohort analysis of salmon and steelhead populations. The project proponents (IDFG) propose to genotype the entirety of Chinook salmon and steelhead broodstock from 14 Snake River hatcheries to empirically test and validate whether PBT can be used to replace coded-wire tags (CWT) for estimating stock contributions of Snake River steelhead and Chinook salmon to fisheries, run-timing, straying, etc., of adult salmon in the Snake/Columbia River basins.

The technical justification of using PBT as a replacement for CWT-based assessment of hatchery production in harvest, straying, and returns to hatcheries (life-cycle survival) is adequately described. The ISRP notes, however, that successful implementation of PBT will not eliminate all problems associated with CWTs, mass marking, and selective fisheries. For example, there will still be a need to handle and mass mark juvenile hatchery fish with an adipose fin clip or some other highly-visible mark for selective fisheries.

The technological development to bring PBT to pilot scale trial is consistent with the BiOp, Fish and Wildlife Program, and Lower Snake River Compensation Plan. Relationships with other projects in the Basin are sufficiently described, and evidence is provided that the proponents are familiar with other PBT trials in Puget Sound, Washington and the Sacramento River, California. The proposed project involves coordination with the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission (CRITFIC) and other Genetics Analysis of Pacific Salmon (GAPS) and Stevan Phelps Allele Nomenclature (SPAN) laboratories to develop a coastwide Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPS) baseline.

One concern is that the ISRP could not determine whether this proposed project unnecessarily duplicates work already being performed or proposed by other BPA-funded projects. For example, the proposed work is contingent upon the success (efficiency, precision, and accuracy) of efforts associated with BPA Project #200890700, “Genetic Assessment of Columbia River Stocks.” Moreover, the project will "identify SNP loci" for Chinook salmon and steelhead. Presumably, BPA Project #200890700 should be far enough along to inform these choices now without significant new work. Finally, the proposed project will not analyze future harvested or escaped (from fishery) Snake River salmon and steelhead except as a test (objective 5). The ISRP does not understand why BPA Proposal No. 201002600: “Chinook and steelhead genotyping for genetic stock identification (GSI) at Lower Granite Dam,” which is contingent on the results of this proposed project, was submitted as a separate proposal. As a result, is there unnecessary overlap or duplication of some work elements between the two proposals?


2. Project History and Results
The proposed project is new, but efforts to begin collecting tissue for genetic analysis are already underway, e.g., samples from broodstock at most Snake River hatcheries were obtained in 2008 and 2009. Since this project is closely linked with the CRITFC project developing SNP assays for Columbia River salmon ESUs (BPA Project #200890700), a more detailed description of the number of SNPs identified to date and how many of those have been polymorphic in the populations of interest would have been useful.

3. Objectives, Work Elements, and Methods
The objectives are relatively straightforward. The overall work plan and strategy to collect tissue samples; develop SNPs; identify a SNP panel for both genetic stock identification (GSI) and PBT; and then test that panel using progeny from known populations; and finally cross check with harvested fish that carry CWTs is sound. One difficulty for ISRP reviewers not expert in the field of salmon genetics was that proponents used lots of technical jargon without defining their terminology. In addition, publications and computer software packages were frequently cited for methods without providing a concise summary or explanation of these methods in the proposal.

The ISRP suggests that for objective 4, 157...SNP Genotyping (juveniles) - a number of non-hatchery wild juveniles originating from major population groups (MPGs) or reporting groups should be tested against the parents used to establish the PBT baseline. They should not assign to any of the hatcheries. It was not apparent from the objectives and methods that this testing was included.

One final concern is that the high throughput requirements for analysis of 16.5K samples per year plus any future samples from fisheries, etc., may quickly overwhelm the system. Given the genetic laboratory's other demands, proponents need to verify in contracting that results can be provided in accordance with proposed schedules.

The RME Workgroup comments agreed with three project BiOp RPA associations (50.5, 62.5 and 64.2), questioned one (50.7) and suggested that three be deleted (55.8, 63.2, 64.1).  For 50.7 that asked to confirm that the scope of work proposed is for 100% marking of fish (visible or non visible) and that if the project involved marking fish for the hatchery, that we specify the hatchery name and populations affected.  The hatchery stocks are listed below for both spring/summer Chinook salmon and steelhead.  Responses to the three RPAs suggested for deletion are also provided below. 

 50.7- Fund marking of hatchery releases from Action Agencies funded facilities to enable monitoring of hatchery-origin fish in natural spawning areas and the assessment of status of wild populations. (Annually) 

Response:  BPA project will permanently genetically mark all hatchery spring/summer Chinook salmon and steelhead in the Snake River basin (Idaho, Oregon and Washington).  These populations are summarized in Table 1 and 2 along with the number of broodstock spawned in 2008 and 2009. 

 Table 1.  Total number of Snake River steelhead hatchery broodstock sampled in 2008 and 2009.  *Early egg-takes were missed.  **ODFW hatcheries were not sampled in 2008.

 

 Table 2.  Total number of Snake River Chinook salmon hatchery broodstock sampled in 2008 and 2009. 

 55.8-Evaluate new tagging technologies for use in improving the accuracy and assessing delayed or indirect hydro effects on juvenile or adult fish.

Response:  It appears that the new tagging technology that RPA 55.8 references primarily involves acoustic tags.  The Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking (POST) program is a BPA funded project (2003-114-00) that is developing electronic tagging technology and methods to determine delayed or indirect effects of hydro passage by tracking salmon and steelhead in the estuary below Bonneville Dam and the ocean environment off the Pacific coast.  While our current project goals do not include sampling hatchery salmon and steelhead in these areas, it easy to see how PBT technology ultimately could be used to address many of the same types of questions that acoustic tag technology is attempting to address.  These questions are outlined on the POST website (http://www.coml.org/projects/pacific-ocean-shelf-tracking-project-post) and includes:

• ·         Do different salmon stocks form stock-specific aggregations at sea, or do they share common migration pathways and foraging areas? If such aggregations or pathways occur, where are the boundaries and how long do salmon remain in these areas?
• ·         Do distributions and migration patterns fluctuate with annual and long-term changes in ocean productivity, such as spring bloom cycles and El Niño/La Niña conditions?
• ·         How do different salmon species respond to changes in ocean conditions?
• ·         What are the winter movements and habitat usage of juvenile salmon?
• ·         What differences exist between the movement patterns and habitat use of wild and hatchery salmon?
• ·         Do shelf migration behaviors correlate with changes in annual stock success?
• ·         How do distribution and habitat use differ among species and stocks?
• ·         Is there stock-specific, life-stage specific or location-specific mortality in the ocean?

The hatchery offspring that are genetically tagged as part of our project represents all of the Snake River hatchery steelhead and spring/summer Chinook salmon produced each year and  roughly 50% of the entire production of hatchery steelhead and spring/summer Chinook salmon that migrate out of the Columbia River basin annually. 

 63.2- Determine the effect that implemented hatchery reform actions have on the recovery of targeted salmon and steelhead populations.

Response:  The effectiveness of hatchery reform measures will require monitoring genetic divergence between hatchery and wild stocks and making assessments of hatchery straying.

For integrated hatchery programs, actions will be implemented to minimize genetic divergence between the hatchery broodstock and the wild population and to maximize the proportion of natural influence (PNI).  This project can provide annual estimates of the degree of genetic divergence between every hatchery stock within the Snake River basin and associated wild stocks.  Successfully managing segregated hatchery programs will require enhancing harvest opportunities and minimizing straying between hatchery and wild populations.  Parentage Based tagging (PBT) of hatchery stocks in the Snake River basin will allow managers to more efficiently evaluate the effects of different release strategies (where and when fish are released, size and age at release, etc.) on increasing harvest and minimizing straying.  We will demonstrate through a paired coded-wire tag (CWT) and PBT recovery experiment, as part of existing hatchery evaluations in Idaho, that PBT technology can provide the same information as CWT (information on stock and age) for harvest evaluations.  This project’s initial goals are also to demonstrate that any hatchery adult that has found to have strayed into natural production areas (either collected alive or as a carcass) could be sampled and its sex, stock and exact age be determined.  For hatchery steelhead in the upper Salmon River basin, we also intend to determine whether straying adults were from an on-site versus off-site juvenile release.  In the near future, with the completion of a collaborative hatchery rearing and release database module, we should also be able to identify the release location of any hatchery steelhead collected/sampled in a wild production area in the upper Salmon River basin.

 55.8-Continue to estimate the relative reproductive success (RSS) of hatchery-origin salmon and steelhead compared to reproductive success of their natural-origin counterparts.

 Response:  Throughout the Snake River basin Chinook salmon and steelhead hatcheries will be implementing hatchery reform measures to support sustainable fisheries while conserving natural spawning populations.  For stocks designated to be part of integrated programs, effectiveness monitoring will be necessary to assess the reproductive contribution of hatchery fish spawning in the wild and the number of adult recruits produced per hatchery spawner.  In coordination with this project (2010-031-00), IDFG, Tribal and federal co-managers in the Snake River basin are currently collecting genetic samples from all natural and hatchery fish passed above weirs associated with specific hatchery programs.   Because single, standardized SNP genetic marker sets are being developed to address genetic issues for both wild and hatchery stocks, this program will be able to contribute hatchery parental genotypes to any RRS study throughout the Snake River basin.