The Walla Walla River Basin Salmonid M&E is funded by Bonneville Power Administration expense (BPA, project No. 2019-008-00). The purpose of this project is to conduct natural production, tributary habitat, and hatchery research, monitoring and evaluation. Our goal is to provide ecological information and technical services to decision makers in support of adaptive management for restoration, conservation, and preservation of cultural, social, and economic salmonid resources. We plan to do this by collecting Viable Salmonid Population (VSP) criteria including estimates of abundance, productivity, survival rates, and distribution of reintroduced spring Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) salmon, ESA-listed summer steelhead (O. mykiss), and bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Project results, including fish per redd, smolts per redd, smolt-to-adult return, recruit per spawner, etc. are used to help inform and adapt salmonid management and recovery goals.
Project Work elements include Adult Enumeration, Spawning Surveys, Out-migrant monitoring, PIT-tagging, and Fish Salvage. We believe these monitoring and evaluation actions meet the highest priorities for fish population monitoring as identified by the Walla Walla Subbasin Plan and Snake River Salmon Recovery Plan. The work location is the Walla Walla River Basin and tributaries (e.g. Touchet River, South Fork, and Mill Creek). Project methods were adapted from the Salmonid Field Protocols Handbook: Techniques for Assessing Status and Trends in Salmonid and Trout Populations (http://www.stateofthesalmon.org/fieldprotocols/). A major focus of ours is to estimate “adults in” and “juveniles out” as a measure of salmonid population viability; for example, adult salmonids entering the basin to spawn are enumerated using weirs and video, spawning fish and carcasses are enumerated by multiple pass ground surveys, while the juvenile emigrant population is estimated using rotary screw traps and PIT-tags.
Prior to 2019 CTUIR and WDFW project partners collaborated on the project proposal, budget, statements of work and annual report; but retained their individual contracts with BPA. In 2019 the work conducted by WDFW was moved to project 201900800 in order to separate Accord funding from non-Accord funding. WDFW is the sole proponent organization for 201900800. CTUIR project offices are located at the William A. Grant Water and Science Center at Walla Walla Community College; while the WDFW South East Washington District Offices are located in Dayton, Washington. Earlier, CTUIR and WDFW conducted separate studies and reported to BPA in separate annual reports, under project numbers 199802000 and 20003900. Previous project reports, data and metadata are found at the CTUIR website www.data.umatilla.nsn.us/fisheries/index.aspx, or WDFW website at www.wdfw.wa.gov, or the BPA website (efw.bpa.gov).
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