the ospreyospreysteelhead.org/archives/theospreyissue74.pdf · decades of depressed steelhead abun...

Bill McMillan has lived besideWashington and Oregon rivers for 40years, with many published writingsand photography, along with conserva-tion activism. He was a founder of WildFish Conservancy in 1989 and its boardpresident for ten years. He is now aretired WFC field biologist.Bill and his son John have recently

published a book, “May the RiversNever Sleep: Living with North PacificRivers as Calendars in the Footsteps ofRoderick Haig-Brown” that describeshow Haig-Brown inspired their transi-tion from anglers to learning moredeeply about rivers through snorkeling,and eventually becoming biologists. Itis available from Frank AmatoPublications and the Wild FishConservancy, where profits go back tothe rivers and fish.

My own history withWind River began vic-ariously as a nine yearold in 1954 with thepublication of Clark

Van Fleet’s Steelhead to a Fly. It was

on display in the book section ofPortland’s Meier and Frank depart-ment store, right next to the sportinggoods section where I commonlywatched famed fly tier, Audrey Joy,work away at her craft. I would wait

there as my parents shopped forhousehold necessities, going toPortland once per month from ourhome in Camas, Washington. Over aperiod of several months, I read VanFleet’s accounts of steelhead fly fishingduring the regular visits to Meir andFrank. Of particular interest: he con-sidered Wind River to be one of thechallenging equals to the North Fork

Umpqua for steelhead. Lo and behold,Wind River was but 25 miles from mychildhood home! I then vowed to be asteelhead fly fisher. As the sayinggoes, “Be careful of what you wishfor.” A steelhead fly fisher I becamewith the freedom of a driver’s licenseat age 16 and a wild steelhead fromWind River that first summer on a #8Red Ant, fished (unwittingly) perfectgreased line.

Little did I know what part WindRiver and its steelhead would come toplay in the acceptance of responsibili-ty to try to give back to the river andits wild steelhead some small returnfor all they had given me. It has beennearly 60 years since 1954, often yearsof heartbreak in watching wild steel-head populations diminish in bothnumbers and diversity of life histories.Some populations completely vanishedin the Columbia basin during my life-time: the upper Cowlitz, Owyhee,Boise, Payette, Malheur, and NorthFork Clearwater rivers to name butsome. Each of the above vanished in

THE OSPREYA Journal Published by the Steelhead Committee

Federation of Fly Fishers

Dedicated to the Preservation of Wild Steelhead • Issue No. 74 JANUARY 2013

COLUMBIA RSTEELHEAD— PAGE 1 —

PUGETSOUND C&R— PAGE 3 —

COHEN COMMISSION— PAGE 10

FRASERSOCKEYE

— PAGE 13 —

OKANAGANSOCKEYE

— PAGE 16 —

Continued on Page 4

Columbia River SteelheadAn accidental experiment of neighboring rivers

by Bill McMillan— Wild Fish Conservancy —

IN THISISSUE:

It has been nearly 60years, often of heart-break, watching wildsteelhead diminish innumbers and diversity.

http://wildfishconservancy.org

http://wildfishconservancy.org

While The Osprey regu-larly brings to its read-ers reports on decliningpopulations of wildsteelhead and salmon,

and the many difficult challenges andbarriers they face if these remarkablefish are to survive into the future, notall is doom and gloom. There are suc-cesses and many reasons for optimism,and this issue of The Osprey highlightssome of those bright spots.

Our cover story by respected wildfish advocate and biologist BillMcMillan outlines how wild steelheadhave made a comeback inWashington’s Wind River when statefish managers abandoned the emphasison hatchery supplementation, con-trasting with wild steelhead in theHood River that struggled as hatcherysupplementation continued. May thelessons of the Wind be applied to otherstreams needing wild steelhead recov-ery.

Or consider Craig Orr and StanProbosczc’s story on the CohenCommission and the political pressurethat eventually resulted in an investi-

gation into the steep declines of sock-eye salmon in British Columbia’sFraser River, along with the accompa-nying article by scientists DouglasBraun and Brendan Conners whoseresearch on Fraser River sockeye aimsto help determine the causes for popu-lations swings. And Tom Kahlerdescribes how a water managementmodel to improve habitat on theOkanagan River has increased thesockeye population far above what canbe achieved by traditional hatcherysupplementation methods.These kinds of successes are testi-

mony that, while the future of wildsalmon and steelhead is not guaran-teed, neither is it inevitably doomed.

Contributing EditorsPete Soverel • Bill Redman Stan Young • Norm Ploss

William Atlas • Schuyler DunphyScott Hagen Contributors

Bill McMillan • Will AtlasCraig Orr • Stan Probosczc

Douglas Braun • Brendan Conners •Tom Kahler

LayoutJim Yuskavitch

THE OSPREY

Letters To The EditorThe Osprey welcomes submissions

and letters to the editor. Submissions may be

made electronically or by mail.

The OspreyP.O. Box 1228

Sisters, OR [email protected](541) 549-8914

The Osprey is a publication of TheFederation of Fly Fishers and is pub-lished three times a year. All materialsare copy protected and require permis-sion prior to reprinting or other use.

The Osprey © 2013

THE OSPREY IS PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPERUSING SOY INK

The Federation of Fly Fishers is aunique non-profit organization con-

cerned with sport fishing and fisheriesThe Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) supports con-

servation of all fish in all waters.FFF has a long standing commit-ment to solving fisheries problems atthe grass roots. By charter and inclina-tion, FFF is organized from the bottomup; each of its 360+ clubs, all overNorth America and the world, is aunique and self-directed group. Thegrass roots focus reflects the realitythat most fisheries solutions must comeat that local level.

ChairWill Atlas

EditorJim Yuskavitch

FROM THE PERCH — EDITOR’S MESSAGE

2 JANUARY 2013 THE OSPREY • ISSUE NO. 74

There is Good News, Too.by Jim Yuskavitch

Invest in the future of “all fish, all waters,” with amembership in the FFF — a nonprofit organization. Your membership helps make us astronger advocate for the sport you love!

Federation of Fly Fishers5237 US Hwy 89 South, Suite 11Livingston, MT 59047-9176

Sockeye salmon on spawning bed. Photoby Mike Gauvin/ODFW

Your membershipincludes a subscription

to Flyfisher, themagazine of FFF.

Join by phone 406-222-9369or at www.fedflyfishers.org

http://fedflyfishers.org/

mailto:[email protected]

This year for the fourth con-secutive winter, the SkagitRiver, one of Washington’smost storied steelheadrivers, will be closed to

angling at the end of January. To thesouth the Stillaguamish, andSkykomish, both equally steeped inangling tradition, have been closedduring the peak months of the wildwinter steelhead run since 2001. Theseclosures are the WashingtonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife’sunderstandable reaction to twodecades of depressed steelhead abun-dance in Puget Sound, the product ofmore than a century of destructiveoverharvest, habitat destruction,hatchery supplementation and a turnfor the worse in marine survival forsteelhead entering the Georgia Basin.Like so many advocates for wild fish,my passion for their conservationbegan with angling. This evolution,from catch and release angler to tire-less advocate was accelerated dramat-ically by many days spent fishing for,and occasionally catching, wild steel-head on my home rivers in PugetSound. And while I recognize the needto do everything in our power to recov-er steelhead in Puget Sound, I questionthe efficacy of closing catch andrelease fisheries, particularly whenviewed in isolation as means of recov-ering wild steelhead stocks. In their effort to reduce the risk of

extinction within the Puget SoundESU, NOAA and WDFW have opted toclose the steelhead rivers of PugetSound 3-4 months before the historicend of these fisheries. While theirintentions are admirable, these clo-sures are inconsistent with and farmore severe than regulations in otherareas where steelhead have been listedunder the ESA. Take for instance thelower Columbia and Willamette, wherethe vast majority of streams remain

open to catch and release fishing untilthe end of March. On the many tribu-taries of the Snake, steelhead anglingremains open for most of the year andanglers may catch ESA listed steel-head anytime from August to March,and on the upper Columbia, an ESUwhere steelhead were only recentlydown-listed from Endangered toThreatened, we have seen seasons last-ing anywhere from 2 to 7 months dur-ing the last 4 years.

Given this disparity you mightexpect the situation in Puget Sound tobe much more dire than in those areascurrently open to sport fishing, howev-er this is far from the case. While forthe most part wild steelhead abun-dance remains depressed belowescapement goals in Puget Sound, theSkagit was at or near its escapementgoal of 6,000 fish each of the last twoseasons. Meanwhile, all of the afore-mentioned ESUs where fisheriesimpacting wild steelhead currentlyoccur annually remain depressedbelow their ESA targeted recoverygoals as well. Even more baffling is theinconsistency within Puget Sound.While steelhead fisheries remainclosed from February through April,anglers are allowed to harvest ESA

listed wild Chinook in parts of PugetSound, and marine fisheries with muchhigher catch and release mortality arekept open nine months of the year. Themanagement of these Chinook fish-eries is the result of harvest rates thathave been agreed upon by both NOAAand WDFW. Meanwhile we have lostour fisheries for wild winter steelheadalmost entirely, depriving residents ofPuget Sound of the opportunity toenjoy these iconic fish and starvingeconomically depressed riversidecommunities of three months of eco-nomic activity generated by these oncepopular fisheries. The agencies have always fallen back

on the argument that these populationsmay not meet their escapement goal,and thus allowing any fish to be killed,even incidentally by catch and releaseanglers, is not biologically defensible.This argument holds some water, andtheir concern with maintaining abun-dance of ESA listed steelhead is war-ranted. However, as we have learnedfrom steelhead monitoring projects inwatersheds without angling such asSnow Creek in Puget Sound and theKeogh River on Vancouver Island,marine survival is above all elseresponsible for year to year fluctua-tions in adult population sizes. Indeedthe “carrying capacity” of a water-shed, the level of adult abundanceoften used as an escapement goal,actually varies with changes in marinesurvival. In a large river such as theSkagit, Skykomish, Nooksack orStillaguamish, catch and releaseangling would have a negligible impacton the trajectory of steelhead popula-tions. Throw in the fact that the avail-able data and run forecasts of steel-head abundance in Puget Sound rangefrom poor and unreliable to non-exis-tent, and it is as though managers have

THE OSPREY • ISSUE NO. 74 JANUARY 2013 3

ESA Listings, Catch and Release andthe Future of Puget Sound Steelhead

by Will Atlas— Chair, Steelhead Committee —

While we need to doeverything to recoverwild steelhead, I

question the efficacy of closing catch andrelease fisheries for

that purpose.

CHAIR’S CORNER

Continued on page 19

the belief that hatcheries could miti-gate the loss of wild populationsthrough dams. I early learned the lieof mitigation as the secret weapon toravage land and waters. Through adult years, I increasingly

shifted river time from that of fishingto volunteer spawning and snorkel sur-veys to create databases from whichwild steelhead populations might bebetter understood and subsequentlymanaged for recovery rather than con-tinued diminishment. One of these vol-unteer efforts was the initiation ofsnorkel counts at Wind River as ameans of monitoring its wild summer-run steelhead in 1983. The history,both before and after, has been com-plex – often discouraging – but withmuch recent hope. Wind River nowprovides a management template forwild steelhead recovery rather thancontinued trends toward extinctionsdirectly related to investments domi-nated by past billions of dollars spenton West Coast hatchery programs.

Wind River is 155 miles above themouth of the Columbia. Its steelheadstory is more complete due to its prox-imity to Hood River on the Oregon sideof the Columbia about 14 milesupstream. Detailed genetic studies ofwild and hatchery summer-run steel-head have occurred at Hood Rivercombined with annual adult returnsprovided by counts at Powerdale Dam(until removal in 2010). Although sim-ilarly detailed genetic study has notoccurred at Wind River, snorkel countsand comparative ladder/trap countsprovide annual summer-steelheadreturn numbers. The ultimate compar-ative value is provided by hatcherysummer-run steelhead smolt plantshaving been eliminated on Wind Riversince 1998 whereas hatchery summer-run steelhead smolt plants continuedat Hood River until 2010 and hatcherywinter-run plants remain ongoing.

Wind River’s Early History

A 1949 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service(USFWS) report included 1936-1940spawning gravel measures at WindRiver that found it could support 5,950pairs of “salmon” above Shepard Falls(spelling at time) then limited to steel-

head prior to laddering. This was aftersplash dam operations had occurreddating to at least 1899 and other log-ging effects on stream channel degra-dation. It also excluded Trout Creek,since found to be a major spawningtributary likely at least as productiveas Panther Creek. Passage improve-ments at Trout Creek were made in2009 with removal of Hemlock Dam,its poorly designed fish ladder, anddraining of the sediment filled reser-voir behind. This was done to increasewild steelhead productivity. Wildsteelhead production by Wind Riverlocation based on spawning gravelavailable in 1936 to 1940 is shown inTable 1.

Females typically outnumber malesteelhead, but the proportions areregionally variable. In an 1896 exami-nation of over 4,000 summer-run steel-head destined for the Columbia basinabove Celilo Falls, 37% were males and63% females. Historic wild winter-runsteelhead at Puget Sound’s GreenRiver and Waddell Creek of theCalifornia Coast were found to be 48%-49% male in the 1930s and 1940s. Ifmales were 37% of total numbers thehistoric Wind River spawning habitatcould have supported 11,825 summersteelhead; if males were 48% of thetotal it could have supported 14,327summer steelhead. In 1951, Wind River was reported to

have an estimated escapement of 2,500summer steelhead after a harvest of7,500 pounds (750-1,100 steelheaddepending on a 7 or 10 pound averageper fish as a likely range) – a return toriver run-size of 3,250-3,600 wild steel-head. Until 1947, the Carson LumberCompany dam blocked access tospawning gravel in upper Wind Riverbasin that could support 1,800 of thetotal basin spawning pairs (2,700-3,500steelhead adjusting for fewer males).The 1951 steelhead were from parent-age limited to spawning and rearingwaters downstream of that dam – longexcluded from some of the best spawn-

ing habitat in the basin. In 1957 it was reported by Enos

Bradner, outdoor columnist for theSeattle Times, that 257 Wind Riversteelhead had been counted past theladder at Shepard Falls by September15th, with another 300 steelhead esti-mated to have leapt the falls: total 557wild summer steelhead. In 1956, 183had leapt the falls. Although naturalpassage was not reported for 1956, pre-sumably it was a similar percentage to1957. Bradner indicated that the oncefamed steelhead fishing had been indecline as determined by his 20 yearsprevious experience, especially sinceabout 1952. What the steelhead har-vest was in 1956 and 1957 is unknown,but it was apparent that summer steel-head escapement had greatly declinedsince 1951. And even the 1951 dataindicate Wind River was far below thespawning gravel carrying capacitydetermined in the 1930s.

Wind River Since

The first release of summer steel-head hatchery smolts was made atWind River in 1957 (origin unknown).In 1962, an estimated 838 wild summersteelhead were sport caught at WindRiver. Sustained releases of SkamaniaHatchery smolts from the WashougalRiver did not begin until 1961, withfirst adult returns in the summer of1963. Between 1961 and 1980 an aver-age of 78,000 Skamania Hatchery sum-mer-run smolts were planted annuallyat Wind River. The average total sportcatch (hatchery and wild) from 1963 to1982 was 1,100 steelhead. Consideringthe wild summer steelhead catch of750-1,100 fish in 1951, and 838 wildsummer steelhead in 1962, it is appar-ent that the combined wild and hatch-ery catch of 1963-1982 added little ornothing to angling success despite thelarge annual investment in hatcherysmolt plants. Apparently, hatchery


Columbia River SteelheadContinued from page 1

Continued on next page

Wind River spawning gravel area Number of steelhead pairs it could supportShepard Falls to Carson Lumber Mill Dam 2,500 pairCarson Lumber Mill Dam to source 1,500 pairPanther Creek over 1,500 pairCedar Creek (Panther Creek tributary) 150 pair (indicated several hundred fish)Trapper Creek 300 pairTotal 5,950 pairTotal if Trout Creek added as equal to Panther 7,450 pair

Table 1. Estimates of pairs of steelhead Wind River spawning gravel could support

steelhead were merely replacing wildsteelhead at the added public cost ofthe hatchery program.

With this background, in 1981Washington Department of Game(WDG) recommended that Wind Riverbe managed for wild steelhead withelimination of hatchery steelheadplants. After public meetings andwritten comments were assessed, theGame Commission in January of 1982endorsed that recommendation. WindRiver became the first steelheadstream in Washington to be managedfor wild steelhead with hatchery sum-mer-steelhead smolt plants discontin-ued that same year. However, in 1983, a very low return

of steelhead occurred at Wind Riverand throughout much of theNorthwest. Although the decline insteelhead returns that summer wasdue to reduced ocean productivityrelated to the 1982-1983 El Niño event,and had nothing to do with the wildmanagement decision, WDG suddenlyreversed course at Wind River andresumed hatchery summer steelheadplants in 1984.

Even though hatchery steelheadreleases resumed, it remained thatWind River had been designated a WildSteelhead Management River in 1982as outlined in 1981. That designationheld despite the 1983 decision toresume hatchery plants in 1984. Thedecision included: reducing hatcheryplants to half or less; implementingwild steelhead catch and release; andthen waiting for wild steelhead torespond with some anticipatedincrease in returns before again halt-ing hatchery plants to fulfill the origi-nal decision. The question was, wouldwild steelhead respond by reducinghatchery plants from an average of78,000/year to 33,000/year as occurred?And what monitoring method(s) wouldbe implemented to effectively deter-mine that? No monitoring by WDGhad been done on Wind River at thetime and none had been outlined in anymanagement plan.In 1980 volunteers from the Clark-

Skamania Flyfishers (CSF) initiatedsamplings of several Wind River tribu-taries to determine juvenile steel-head/rainbow distribution. In 1982 thevolunteers did a 1.25 mile spawningsurvey of upper Wind River. Then

after consulting with volunteers whohad helped the British Columbia Fishand Wildlife Branch monitorVancouver Island wild steelhead popu-lations, in early September of 1983three volunteers from the CSF initiat-ed Wind River snorkel surveys as ameans to stimulate effective data col-lection from which to monitor wildsteelhead population responses tomanagement changes. The resultsfrom that initial 3.55 mile snorkel sur-vey were startling. Only four totalsteelhead were counted, of which onlyone was wild, two were hatchery, andone was unknown origin. The surveyincluded two miles in the heart of thesteelhead over-summering canyonarea. However, in each of the subse-quent four years steelhead numbersincreased during these volunteersnorkel surveys. Figure 1 (above) pro-vides the findings.Although these limited surveys pro-

vided a relatively accurate indicator ofincreasing numbers of steelhead after1983, it did not provide sufficient datato know complete basin numbers, northe eventual spawning distribution bybasin area. From a volunteer stand-point of limited manpower and time,full basin snorkel surveys were notpossible. In 1985, WDG initiated basin-wide spawning surveys. However,these too had limitations due to hatch-ery steelhead again returning to thebasin. How differentiate wild fromhatchery redds?

In the report made by the CSF toWashington Department of Wildlife(WDW after name change in 1987)about the 1987 snorkel survey results,it was suggested that the CSF volun-teers collaborate with WDW,Washington Department of Fisheries,and Gifford Pinchot National Forestpersonnel to snorkel survey the entirelength of mainstem Wind River usedby summer-run steelhead in lateAugust or early September of 1988.This subsequently occurred. Sincethen there have been continuous 16mile surveys led by what is nowWashington Department of Fish andWildlife (WDFW). These snorkel sur-veys provided a baseline from which todetermine how wild steelhead num-bers would respond if hatchery steel-head plants were eventually eliminat-ed to fulfill the original wild steelheadplan. However, snorkeling alone doesnot count every steelhead. WDFWdeveloped methods to fine tune thesnorkel counts to provide betterescapement estimates. As explainedby Dan Rawding and Patrick Cochranin a 2005 report to BPA:Adult summer steelhead escapement

was estimated using four differentmark-recapture methodologies. Our“Jumper” method is based on summerand fall snorkel surveys to determinethe ratio of fish jumping Shipherd Fallsto those trapped in the fish ladder.


Continued from previous page


Figure 1.

Expansion of the ladder count by thisrate for the remainder of the jumpingperiod and a direct count of adults forthe remainder of the run year wereused to estimate summer steelheadabundance. (Note: Trapped fish havecolored tags and “jumpers” do not assighted in snorkel counts. The“jumper” method has been the prima-ry method used.)With wild steelhead numbers subse-

quently found declining after 1988 andon through the 1990s, the decision wasmade to once again eliminate furtherhatchery steelhead releases after 1997at Wind River. The resulting history ofWind River counts, spawning surveys,and hatchery plants are provided inFigure 2 (no escapement estimateswere made from 1960-1984; morerecent data were provided in 2012 byDan Rawding, of WDFW, and from aBPA report he co-authored in 2011):What is apparent from the two trend

lines shown in Figure 2 is that afterhatchery plants were discontinued in1998, the wild summer steelheadresponded with increased escapement(black bars and dotted line), while theperiod from 1952 to 2000 indicates wildsummer steelhead escapementdeclined during the period dominatedby hatchery steelhead plants from1957 to 1997 (gray bars and dashedline). However, the question remains,was this actually a result of eliminat-

ing hatchery smolt plants or was it dueto improved freshwater and/or oceanconditions on steelhead survival dur-ing the more recent period?

Hood River Early History

On April 14, 1806 Captain WilliamClark indicated that Labiech's (Hood)River came off Mt. Hood and was filledby a bed of sand much like theQuicksand (Sandy) River he hadexplored thirteen days earlier. The lat-ter was nowhere deeper than 4-6 feet.It had a wide bed, but it was composedof quicksand with shallow channelsdispersed across its 350 yard breadth.No native people occupied the SandyRiver in Clark’s exploration up it. Arecent eruption of Mt. Hood had appar-ently occurred. If similar to the 1980eruption of Mt. St. Helens, where boil-ing mudflows temporarily eradicatedmainstem fishlife in the Toutle River, itwould explain the 1806 absence of thenative people who depended onsalmon. Apparently Hood River wassimilarly impacted. By the time offirst record keeping (late 1800s to early1900s) anadromous fish recovery hadnaturally occurred at both rivers sincethe Lewis and Clark Expedition. Hood River was surveyed in 1944 and

included in the USFWS Columbia basinreports. Former large runs of salmonand steelhead were said to have been

depleted. Rather than having a water-fall near the mouth as at Wind River,the primary falls of selective impor-tance for steelhead is a half mile up theWest Fork, 14 miles from the mainriver mouth. Although the West Forkwas found to have the best spawninggravel in the basin, sufficient for anestimated “several thousand salmonand steelhead,” irrigation diversionshad reduced flows at the falls. Somesteelhead were said to remain, whileChinook were near extinction (soon togo extinct). Furthermore, the 3.5 milesof mainstem Hood River between thepowerhouse a half mile above themouth and Powerdale Dam, was com-monly left dry or nearly dry. Due tothis passage problem, there was littleoptimism for Hood River anadromousfish at that time when combined withthe other dams and/or diversions fur-ther upstream on the East, Middle, andWest forks.

Hood River Since

By 1955, apparently better passagehad been provided at Powerdale Damand counts and trapping of steelheadbegan. A 1966 Oregon FishCommission report indicates that of882 total wild steelhead counted thatyear, 189 were summer-run and therest winters. However, winter andsummer steelhead run-timing over-lapped, and in most of the early yearsmany steelhead could not be differen-tiated for summer and winter distinc-tions. One of the exceptions was in1962 when 217 hatchery summer-runsalong with 363 wild summer-runs werecounted as listed in a 1985 BonnevillePower Administration (BPA) report. However, until 1965 the counts may

not have been complete. In a consul-tant’s report for the Nez Perce tribe in1991, it indicates that Powerdale Damcounts only occurred at one ladder (oftwo) from 1955 through 1962, and from1955 through 1964 some fish may havebeen able to go over the dam in highflows without using the ladders. The1985 BPA report indicates the firstyear when counts were effectivelybroken out and complete was 1971 with572 wild summer-runs and 303 hatch-ery. Hood River wild summer-runnumbers in 1962 and 1971 were similarto those estimated passing Shepard




Figure 2.

Falls in 1956 and 1957 at Wind River. Unlike Wind River, which has only a

token wild winter-run of steelhead pri-marily limited to the mile of riverbasin below Shepard Falls, Hood Riverhas a winter-run steelhead populationthat is larger than that of the summerrun. They spawn in the mainstem,East Fork, and Middle Fork of HoodRiver, while the summer-runs spawnprimarily in the West Fork abovePunchbowl Falls.

The 1991 consultant’s report indi-cates that the first hatchery rearedsummer-run steelhead smolts werereleased at Hood River in 1958 fromwild broodstock and continued through1966. Beginning in 1967, out-of-basinSkamania hatchery origin summer-runsmolts were released. A 2011 reportby Robert Reagan to BPA indicatesthat Skamania smolts continued to bereleased at Hood River through 2007.Hood River wild broodstock hatcherysummer-run smolt releases wereadded in 1999 and continued through2009 (except 2007). Out-of-basin win-ter-run smolt releases from Big CreekHatchery began in 1988 and ended in1991 at Hood River. Hood River wildbroodstock hatchery winter-run smoltreleases began in 1993. In 1992, thehatchery winter-run smolt releaseswere of mixed Big Creek Hatchery andwild broodstock heritage.

Between 1991 and 1993 the HoodRiver Production Plan (HRPP) wasdeveloped from which to: “protect,enhance and restore wild and naturalpopulations of anadromous and resi-dent fish within the Hood RiverSubbasin”. The plan, described in the2011 report to BPA, included threemain categories: 1) hatchery supple-mentation, 2) habitat restoration, and3) monitor and evaluation. The latterincluded the Hood River SteelheadGenetics Study. Hood River DNA and scale samples

from all steelhead passing PowerdaleDam began in 1991 as a means toaddress certain concerns. Asexplained in a 2003 report to BPA,Relative Reproductive Success ofHatchery and Wild Steelhead in theHood River, by Dr. Michael Blouin ofOregon State University (OSU): There is a considerable interest in

using hatcheries to speed the recoveryof wild

Populations ... These hatchery pro-grams cost the region millions of dol-lars. However, whether such programsactually improve the status of wild fishremains untested. The goal of this pro-ject was to evaluate the effectivenessof the Hood River hatchery program ...During the 1990’s “old” domesticatedhatchery stocks of each run (multiplegenerations in the hatchery, out-of-basin origin; hereafter Hold) werephased out, and conservation hatcheryprograms were started for the purposeof supplementing the two wild popula-tions (hereafter “new” hatchery stocks,Hnew)”

Numerous Hood River studies andreports have followed. A 2009 reportto BPA from the Confederated Tribesof Warm Springs by RyanGerstenberger, Hood River ProductionProgram Monitoring and Evaluation(M&E), Annual Report for Fiscal YearOctober 2007 – September 2008, indi-cates the progressive findings: During the initial period of the HRPP

wild summer steelhead appeared to bein severe decline in the Hood River. Asupplementation strategy using hatch-ery reared fish from wild broodstockwas employed in order to boost thenumber of returning spawners whilemaintaining the genetic characteris-tics of the native stock. There were sig-nificant improvement to returns in2000 and 2001 (years when virtuallyevery anadromous fish stock in theColumbia Basin flourished) but there

was little if any positive wild adultreturn response from the hatchery sup-plementation. Another assumption ofthe wild broodstock supplementationstrategy was that smolts reared fromwild origin parents should be betteradapted to the basin and experiencebetter survival than the “domesticat-ed” out-of-basin origin fish stocked toprovide angling opportunities. In factthe opposite was the case and ODFWreported that the Hood stock hatcherysteelhead consistently had lower smoltto adult ratios than Skamania stocksteelhead of the same brood year(1999-2005) (Olsen 2007). Thus itappears that summer steelhead sup-plementation was ineffective atrebuilding the wild run. As a resultHood River managers decided to endthe Hood River wild broodstock hatch-ery supplementation. The last releaseof Hood River stock summer steelheadis to occur in spring 2009.The line that I have put in bold above

is an understatement. The portrayal ofthe Hood River wild summer steelheadadult escapement trend from 1981 to2010 (end of Powerdale Dam countswith its removal) compared to all sum-mer steelhead smolt plants made threeyears before to align with the domi-nant adult spawning year returns isprovided in Figure 3 above.Regarding domesticated broodstock

resulting from hatchery rearing overmultiple generations, the Hood River




Figure 3.wild summer escapement wild summer escapement

studies found that compared to wildfish their relative reproductive suc-cess in the wild was only 8% for win-ter-run and 33% for summer-run steel-head (from a paper in Fisheries forGlobal Welfare and Environment, 5thWorld Fisheries Congress 2008, byHitoshi Araki of OSU). Araki and col-leagues further found in a 2009 paperin Biology Letters published by theRoyal Society, that wild-born steelheadfrom two captive-bred parents (of wildbroodstock) had overall only 37% ofthe relative reproductive fitness ofsteelhead from two wild parents andonly 87% if from one captive-bred par-ent and one wild parent. Furthermore,a significant carry-over effect wasfound that continued to drag the wildpopulation down in the generationafter hatchery supplementation. Thewild population would have been 8%higher without the carry-over effect. Hood River’s wild winter-run steel-

head declining response to domesticat-ed broodstock hatchery steelheadsmolt releases (from Big Creek)resulted in termination of those plantsafter 1991 and initiation of Hood Riverwild broodstock hatchery winter-runsmolt plants in 1993 (mixed Big Creekand wild broodstock heritage smoltsreleased in 1992). The wild winter-runreturns during the period of using wildbroodstock hatchery smolts have beenconsidered to be more successful thanwith summer steelhead at Hood Riverwith continuation of the program asindicated in the 2009 ConfederatedTribes of Warm Springs report to BPA.However, as shown in Figure 4, thetrend is similar to that of Hood Riversummer steelhead and would appear tobe headed toward the same eventualend. Furthermore, genetic studies ofhatchery winter-run steelhead fromwild broodstock and wild Hood Riverwinter-run steelhead that spawned nat-urally together resulted in a reducedtotal returning population size. Asindicated in a 2012 article in Heredity,Effective Size of a Wild SalmonidPopulation Is Greatly Reduced byHatchery Supplementation, by MarkChristie of OSU and colleagues: ... the additional hatchery fish doubledthe total number of adult fish on thespawning grounds each year, but cutthe effective population size of the

total population (wild and hatcheryfish combined) by nearly two-thirds.(bold my emphasis not authors)Finally in order to better compare the

Wind River example of ceasing hatch-ery summer-run steelhead plants overa ten year period to that of continuedhatchery summer-run steelhead plantsat Hood River, a statistical analysiscomparison was made by William Atlas(Chair of the Steelhead Committee ofFederation of Flyfishers) in 2011. Thiswas included as part of the coordinatedcomments by several conservationorganizations and individuals relatedto a recent WDFW Wind River plan-ning process that may, or may not,result in backtracking once again tosome sort of resumed hatchery steel-head plants. Among the conclusionsfrom the Atlas statistical analysis com-parisons:Prior to the elimination of hatchery

supplementation in the Wind, the twopopulations showed strong temporalcoherence in abundance (R2=0.409)and the mean standardized abundancefor the Wind and Hood River were notsignificantly different for that period(p=0.108). However following the elim-ination of hatchery supplementation inthe Wind River in 1998, the two popula-tions diverged significantly (p=0.0018)with the Wind showing a positive trendrelative to its long term mean and theHood showing a negative trend... Theseresults suggest that the elimination ofhatchery releases in the Wind River

has benefitted wild summer steelheadsignificantly. During the period from2000-2010 when hatchery releaseswere eliminated, the Wind River con-sistently showed a positive trend rela-tive to its long term mean. This trendcontrasts sharply with the trendobserved in the nearby Hood Riverwhere hatchery supplementation con-tinued throughout that period. To ourknowledge the only difference betweenthe two systems that could explain thistrend is the discontinuation of hatcherysupplementation in the Wind.

It was further explained that theWind River data excluded the modernrecord run of 1,500 wild steelhead in2011 because there were no compara-tive data from Hood River yet avail-able. It would likely have resulted ineven greater differences in theirdiverging wild steelhead trends.Figure 5 provides a depiction of thesefindings (Atlas 2011):

Conclusion

With their mouths separated by only14 miles in what is now the BonnevilleDam pool, Wind River and Hood Riverwere at similar levels of wild summer-run steelhead depletion when theirhatchery steelhead histories began inthe latter 1950s. Beginning with set-tlement in the late 19th century, WindRiver had been altered by loggingactivities and the Hood by agricultural




Figure 4.

irrigation. Both rivers included steel-head management histories that couldnot seem to make up their minds, theHood alternating back and forthbetween eliminating hatchery steel-head and the other alternating betweenwild broodstock, traditional domesti-cated broodstock, and back to wildbroodstock again. The two rivers com-bined provide important comparativeresults for the differing hatcheryoptions taken over the past 50 years.By accident, rather than by planning,their proximity has resulted in a fishmanagement experiment of greatlearning consequence. The resultsprovide a template for a ColumbiaRiver wild steelhead recovery futureif appropriately applied, and morebroadly for the Northwest Region rid-dled by ever increasing steelhead ESAlistings.

Hood River management has tena-ciously clung to alternating choices ofsteelhead used for hatchery brood-stock, both summer and winter runs.The summer-run hatchery history hasbeen the longest and the first to be ter-

minated as of 2010. This was after welldocumented genetic studies providedunavoidably clear findings: for eitherbroodstock choice the relative repro-ductive success in the wild was onlyabout one-third of that for wild steel-head. The hatchery broodstock choiceresults were no better, or even worse,for winter-run steelhead. The domesti-

cated winter broodstock had a relativereproductive success in the wild thatwas less than one-tenth that of wildwinter steelhead and that of wild win-ter broodstock was again about one-third of that for wild steelhead.Furthermore, the hatchery effect onthe overall natural spawning popula-tion of steelhead does not go away.This is due to a carry-over effect thatremains in the generation after hatch-ery supplementation as a lingeringdrag on the wild population that wouldhave been 8% higher otherwise. Thisdiminishment apparently continues tooccur throughout the supplementationyears, and may even remain for sometime after supplementation ceases. The Hood River studies indicate it is

not only impossible to recover a wildsteelhead population through hatcherysupplementation, no matter whichbroodstock alternative is used, but thatit will unavoidably continue to declinethroughout time. In other words, theresult is progression toward hatcheryinduced extinction of the wild popula-tion.Alternatively, 14 miles away at Wind

River, smolt plant termination in 1998

finally occurred for a long enough peri-od of ten years to begin to provide sta-tistically significant results. Eventhough smolt plants of domesticatedhatchery stock steelhead had beenreduced from an average of 78,000 to33,000 annually, the period of wildadult returns most immediately affect-ed by those plants from 1988 to 2000

had been one of continuous decline.The subsequent ten years from 2000 to2010 provided a significantly positiveincrease in the wild adult Wind Riversummer steelhead population withoutdirect hatchery smolt plant influence.This compared to the Hood River wildsummer steelhead population responsethat did not similarly increase underthe continued influence of hatcherysmolt releases. Furthermore, the sta-tistical analysis did not include the2010 return of an estimated 1,500 wildsummer steelhead at Wind River,which is the largest known wildescapement since the 1951 estimate.Only the coming years will tell whatthe Wind River wild steelhead popula-tion response will be to the 2009removal of Hemlock Dam at TroutCreek, a former major spawning tribu-tary. At minimum it was a deterrent toboth juvenile and adult migrations. How long the cleansing of the drag on

wild Wind River steelhead productivi-ty may take as a result of prior hatch-ery/wild spawning interactions isunknown. But a wild recovery hasbegun in the long delayed fulfillment ofWind River’s designation as a WildSteelhead Management river in 1982.

The question remains: will state,tribal, and federal fish and habitatmanagers and scientists broadly applythe lessons learned ... not only in theColumbia basin, but in the NorthwestRegion? Or will the belief in hatch-eries and the flow of money they pro-vide continue to seduce scientists andmanagers to ignore whatever the find-ings may otherwise indicate? Faith inhatchery belief has dominated WestCoast fishery history: 135 years ofsteady wild salmon and steelheaddecline, much of it apparently causedthrough billions of dollars spent on thewrong choice of options for a sustain-able future. Meantime, the AmericanEast Coast Atlantic salmon example ofdecimation continues on track to bereplicated for West Coast steelhead.The Wind and Hood River examplesclearly indicate we have choices. Infact, hatchery/wild steelhead researchdating to the 1970s found similarresults as at Hood River. But there wasno comparative Wind River to docu-ment results from hatchery plant ces-sations. There is no longer thatexcuse.



Figure 5. Triangles = Wild Wind R. Steelhead, Diamonds = Wild Hood R. Steelhead

Standardize

d Ab

undance

Craig Orr is Executive Director of theWatershed Watch Salmon Society. StanProboszcz is a fisheries biologist withthe organization. Based in Coquitlam,British Columbia, the WatershedWatch Salmon Society works to protectB.C.’s wild salmon. Find out moreabout the Watershed Watch SalmonSociety at: www.watershed-watch.org.

The Miriam-WebsterDictionary describes anInquiry as 1) an examina-tion into facts or principles,2) a request for informa-

tion, and 3) a systematic investigationoften of a matter of public interest.

Seasoned readers of The Ospreymight be excused, however, from won-dering just who’s protecting theirinterests when it comes to the plight ofwild Pacific salmon. They might alsobe forgiven for doubting governments’resolve when it comes to “systemati-cally investigating” any naturalresource crisis that might reveal gov-ernment not acting in the best inter-ests of the public. After all, why pay toofficially advertise what many havelong known: that Pacific salmon havebeen methodically plundered, ignored,traded-off to competing interests,devalued, and otherwise abused for atleast as long as we’ve had governmentand government resource managers? No federal inquiry had been called to

examine the facts behind the collapseof Canada’s once-teeming Atlantic cod.Instead government tried hard to pre-vent academic scientists from publish-ing their views on cod mismanage-ment. But in 2009, government andCanadians faced a new crisis with icon-ic Pacific salmon. Fraser River sock-eye had been in free fall for 20 years,and when barely a million and a halfsockeye limped back to the once-mighty Fraser in 2009, the lowest-everreturn from dozens of once productivestocks, the crisis—in sockeye and in

public confidence—finally tipped thescales. Canada would have its inquiry.

So when Justice Bruce Cohenstepped up to the podium on October31, 2012 to deliver his much-anticipat-ed final report on the Inquiry into theDecline of Fraser River Sockeye, eventhe jaded took notice. Especially whenthe reserved, former provincialJustice delivered a blockbuster tomeof nearly 1200 pages and 75 recom-mendations that, if enacted, could domore to bolster sockeye fortunes—andthe public interest—than has ever beenseen in Canada.

The report, a culmination of 3 yearsof effort, 3 extensions, and $26 millionin funding was a massive undertaking,to say the least. Nearly 50 groups peti-tioned for participant status. JusticeCohen and an army of 95 lawyers andrepresentatives examined 179 witness-es, including scores of governmentmanagers and senior bureaucrats.Some 573,381 documents, 98% fromthe Government of Canada, were dis-closed to the Inquiry and made avail-able to the eventual 21 official partici-pants who represented several aborig-inal and fishing groups, conservation-ists, salmon farmers, industry, andgovernment. Cohen also commissioned33 expert and policy and practicereports, and, judging by the breadth ofissues examined, he seemingly meantto leave no stone unturned in his

search for potential factors in thedecline of Fraser sockeye.It’s particularly telling that, when the

hearings opened on October 25th, 2010,Justice Cohen was safely ensconced onthe 8th floor of the federal court indowntown Vancouver listening intent-ly to experts describe the sockeye lifecycle, while outside, a couple hundredsoggy wild salmon advocates raisedbanners and voices demanding he pro-tect wild salmon from industrial aqua-culture operations. The elephant in the room—aquacul-

ture—clearly wouldn’t be ignored thistime around, even though it wasn’tscheduled to be discussed until afterother issues of possible relevance. Butoutside on the streets it was literallystopping traffic. Concerns aboutsalmon farming impacts were alsoidentified in nearly 70% of the 800 pluspublic submissions received by theInquiry. The spotlight on salmon aquaculture

was hardly surprising, given the acri-monious and highly public debate thathad been raging in BC for 10 years,ever since sea lice outbreaks on wildjuvenile fish had become an annualspectator sport. Over that decade,Watershed Watch promoted awarenessaround sea lice impacts and urgedreform of government and industry:counting lice on farms in theBroughton Archipelago, helping imple-ment lice monitoring on wild fish,meeting continuously with industryand government, co-organizing half adozen international workshops, andpublishing more than a few journalarticles on the interactions betweenwild and farmed fish—including oneshowing salmon farms significantlyamplify lice on migrating wild juvenileFraser sockeye.

But like demonstrators outside thecourtroom, we were extremely frus-trated by how readily such a hugeweight of evidence was repeatedly dis-



The $26 Million Question:Will Canada act now to protect Fraser River sockeye?

By Craig Orr and Stan Proboszcz— Watershed Watch Salmon Society —

Fraser River sockeyehad been in free fallfor 20 years, and just1.5 million fish limped

back to the once-mighty river in 2009.

http://www.watershed-watch.org

missed by both federal and provincialgovernments. Perhaps grasping forelusive conservation straws, we hopedthe Inquiry and its ability to compeland examine witnesses and their evi-dence held promise as a means ofrevealing impacts and reforming man-agement. For years, those concerned about the

link between farm derived sea lice andwild salmon declines banged theirheads against the provincial govern-ment’s iron door, trying mostly in vainto gain access to farm fish health data.When conservation participants askedCohen to obtain these data back to thetime when sockeye began declining,industry and government argued itwas too onerous. But hey, we’re withyou in spirit they claimed, and to proveit we can spare 5 years or so. In a defin-ing moment—but only after severalrounds of affidavits—Justice Cohenoverturned his own interim ruling andexpanded the examination of fishhealth information to 10 years of dataand 120 farms. It was a hopeful sign. From day one, our and other lawyers

also methodically introduced evidenceof a serious conflict of interest withinCanada’s Department of Fisheries andOceans (DFO). Exhibits were tabledrevealing senior federal scientistswere asked to contribute tranquilizinglanguage to speeches for Members ofParliament in anticipation of a debateabout farming impacts. Budgets andother documents flashed across court-room monitors proving that govern-ment vigorously promoted Canadianfarmed fish as sustainable commodi-ties at the Boston Seafood Show and inprivate meetings in California withSafeway staff. A line-by-line, hour-long examination of the job descriptionand travel itinerary of DFO’sAquaculture Director General becamethe type of almost daily “drama” thateventually helped shape one of JusticeCohen’s seminal recommendations:that “The Government of Canadashould remove from the Departmentof Fisheries and Oceans’ mandate thepromotion of salmon farming as anindustry and farmed salmon as a prod-uct.” As Cohen stated in a volume ofhis report dedicated to his 75 recom-mendations, “Because of its mandateto promote the salmon farming indus-

try, there is a risk that DFO will act ina way that favours the industry to thedetriment of wild fish.” With each new piece of evidence it

became increasingly clear that DFOwas failing at its primary mandate: toprotect salmon and salmon habitat.Senior officials reluctantly admittedmore habitat was being lost than pro-tected, before adding carefully thatthe policy was more of a “guideline.”Federal habitat biologists bravely con-ceded their relationship with theprovince was dysfunctional, and theircapacity to protect habitat had beengutted. Canada’s official Wild SalmonPolicy, a forward-looking blueprint forpreserving the diversity and adaptivecapacity of sockeye and other salmon,was treated like some backwoods-to-be-shunned cousin. Pollutants thatwere poorly monitored and barely reg-ulated likely also contributed to sock-eye woes. Cohen also heard concernsabout and made recommendations toimprove catch monitoring, enforce-ment, enhancement, fisheries certifica-tion, aboriginal co-management, deci-sion-making transparency, test fishing,stock assessment, habitat protection,contaminants monitoring, and sciencecapacity, to name some. He expressedacute concern over climate change—both its impacts on sockeye and lack ofgovernment action. In a seminal docu-ment commissioned for the Inquiry,academic scientist Scott Hinch showedthat sockeye were increasingly sub-jected to dangerous levels of thermalstress. The Fraser River had warmedsignificantly in just 4 decades and inrecent years thousands of salmon fromthe least temperature tolerant stocksperished annually in river before theyspawned, never to pass along theirgenetic legacy.But something else was also going on,

something big that had only startedsurfacing in the work of DFO geneti-cist, Dr. Kristi Miller. A pathogen, pos-sibly related to aquaculture, had rock-eted to the top of the suspect list in thedecline of Fraser River sockeye.Miller published a paper in the journalScience a few months before the two-and-half-week aquaculture-specifichearings were to begin. She foundcompelling evidence suggesting anunidentified virus—now known as aparvo virus—was linked to large scalebehavioural changes and excessive

pre-spawn mortality in Fraser sock-eye. But she was not allowed to talkabout it, so her compelled testimonydrew media in droves. But while she didn’t produce a smok-

ing gun—good science is more aboutdisproving than proving—she did pointa spotlight on the issue of pathogensand the muzzling of scientific messen-gers bearing bad news. Still, the aqua-culture and evidentiary hearingsended—for a brief time at least—withthe public appetite barely whetted.

Then researcher Alex Morton andProfessor Richard Routledge of SimonFraser University announced inOctober 2011 they had positive testresults for infectious salmon anemiavirus (ISAV) of apparently Europeanorigin for the first time in wild Pacificsockeye. Their findings created amedia frenzy, made even more intensewhen a previously unseen 2004 reportsurfaced suggesting DFO too hadfound, and then dismissed positivetests for ISAV years earlier. Americansenators even took heed and initiatedtesting of U.S. stocks. And as partici-pants, we prompted Cohen to re-openthe Inquiry, and in December 2011 hedid, for a special session on pathogens.

Once again, DFO’s Dr. Milleremerged as a star witness. She report-ed that her DFO lab had recently pro-duced positive test results for ISAV inboth wild sockeye and B.C. farmsalmon. More alarming, she told Cohenthat “the virus is causing enough dam-age to elicit a strong response in the[sockeye] salmon.” As if this wasn’tenough, Miller also found signals ofpiscine reovirus (PRV) in farm andwild fish—a pathogen found in theNorwegian industry linked to heartand skeletal muscle inflammation infarm fish (a virus we also found in sub-sequent testing with Dr. Routledge inCultus Lake cutthroat trout).Sadly, Dr. Miller was on her way to

becoming an international poster-childfor a Canadian smack-down on scien-tific transparency in its ranks. And theissue was trade, not conservation.Wild and farmed salmon are both hugetrade commodities. Farmed salmon isBritish Columbia’s largest agriculturalexport, the vast majority ending up onthe plates of U.S. consumers. Enter theCanadian Food Inspection Agency(CFIA). Evidence tabled in the last




days of hearings strongly suggestedthe CFIA and senior ranks in DFOwere trying to derail growing concernsaround “reportable” pathogens likeISAV that would trigger internationaltrade barriers. Dr. Frederick Kibenge, an accredited

expert in detecting ISAV for the WorldOrganization for Animal Health(known as the OIE), similarly testifiedhe felt “attacked” by governmentaudits of his independent lab, whichrained down after he reported positiveresults for viruses. E-mails from high-ranking CFIA officials emerged liken-ing this situation to a “war” and con-gratulating colleagues for “turning thePR tide” to their favour. Evidencemounted suggesting objective and sci-ence-based investigations by govern-ment into positive reports of viruseswere lacking. And a year later, Dr.Kibenge’s struggles continue to appearin national media reports after theCFIA requested the OIE strip his lab’scertification. If not for the powers of afederal judicial inquiry, and Miller’sand Kibenge’s testimony, it might allsound like some whacky governmentconspiracy theory.

Despite the intense focus and newinformation on disease revealedthrough the Inquiry, Cohen reportedthat he could not isolate a “smokinggun” in the decline of Fraser Riversockeye. Expert testimony and reportscommissioned by Cohen suggested cli-mate change and competition for foodfrom (greatly enhanced) pink salmonalso played a factor in sockeye woes.But he had heard enough facts to con-clude that farmed salmon represent a“serious or irreversible threat” toFraser sockeye. And in an unprece-dented ruling on the burden of proof,he called for a freeze on salmon farm-ing production and directed govern-ment to prove the industry isn’t harm-ing wild fish. Otherwise, said Cohen,government should remove the farmedfish from the migration path of wildjuvenile sockeye.

Cohen also had much more to say,couched in three volumes of text andhis 75 recommendations. Particularlyheartening to those of us who hadfought in these trenches was his cham-pioning of Canada’s long-neglectedWild Salmon Policy. He recognized thevalue of this seminal conservation pol-

icy and that it was being given shortshrift compared to the promotion offarmed fish. Cohen called on govern-ment to appoint a wild salmon champi-on and gave timelines for its full imple-mentation. And he also called onCanada to fully enforce its habitat pro-tection policy.In his quiet and sobering way he also

chastised the Federal government forweakening fish habitat protection andenvironmental assessment legisla-tion—at the same time he had beendeliberating on the evidence. Perhapsit’s fitting that Cohen’s three volumesare titled, The Uncertain Future ofFraser River Sockeye.

In the end, most were pleased bywhat Cohen delivered. We now had anunprecedented blueprint for sustain-ing Fraser sockeye, and a report thatplaced an even broader focus on wildsalmon and natural resource manage-ment. Massive amounts of informationhad been revealed on the causes of thedeclines and on what ecological guruBuzz Holling terms “resource manage-ment pathology.” And public expecta-tions for change had never been high-er. Fearing evidence revealed through-out the hearings might fade in theminds of citizens, we compiled a high-lights report with links to hundreds ofkey exhibits and testimony (see ourCohen highlights report at www.water-shed-watch.org/).

As of this writing, however, we’restill awaiting government’s response tothe Cohen Inquiry and final report. Willgovernment allow DFO to finally do itsjob of protecting wild salmon? Or willwe continue to see conflicted mandatesand inadequate attention to science,and thus insufficient change and prior-ity given to conservation? No one cur-rently knows the answer to this $26million dollar question. Many remainskeptical, especially of a governmentthat seemingly favors resource extrac-tion over long-term sustainability andbroad public interest.

But the die has been cast, and it’shard not to feel just a bit more hopefulthat the odds have shifted, at least abit. Also remember a public uproar ini-tiated this whole investigation and itmay take one more round of noise toprompt meaningful governmentaction. Justice Cohen showed us that itis possible. After all, don’t anglersdeserve a bit of hope?


Continued from previous page NMFS to InvestigateSearsville Dam

The National Marine FisheriesService has launched an investigationinto whether Stanford University'soperation of Searsville Dam has vio-lated the Endangered Species Act byharming steelhead trout and otherspecies threatened with extinction.The dam blocks steelhead frommigrating to almost 20 miles of his-torically accessible habitat upstream,it dewaters Corte Madera Creekbelow the dam, degrades water quali-ty and habitat downstream and causesother negative impacts that harmthreatened species.For over a decade, American Rivers,

members of the Beyond SearsvilleDam coalition, and other stakeholdershave tried to work collaborativelywith Stanford University to addressthe problems caused by their dam.The CA Dept of Water Resourceseven offered funding to investigateoptions to deal with the dam's envi-ronmental liabilities. But Stanfordultimately rebuffed these efforts.Stanford believes its dam is not sub-

ject to state or federal laws that pro-tect fish and wildlife, as currentlyoperated. Conservation groups dis-agree, and welcome NMFS's investi-gation.

"While we're disappointed thatStanford chose to take a path of resis-tance, avoidance, and lack of collabo-ration for so many years, we arehappy to see that NMFS has decidedthat enough is enough and has openedan investigation into Stanford's envi-ronmentally destructive dam.” saidBSD director Matt Stoecker.

The NMFS investigation comesafter years of requests from localgroups that Stanford comply withstate and federal laws, challenges totheir controversial HabitatConservation Plan and a State reviewof dam safety. Recently, Stanfordbegan its Searsville Dam AlternativesStudy, an internal process evaluatingoptions for the dam's future. Thethreat of an enforcement actionagainst the university for ESA viola-tions, which could include penalties,should motivate Stanford to completeits study process by the end of 2013.



Douglas Braun is a post doctoralresearcher at Simon Fraser Universityin British Columbia. His researchfocuses on understanding the influ-ences of life history and the environ-ment on population dynamics ofPacific salmonBrendan Conners is also a post doc-

toral researcher at Simon FraserUniversity in the School of Resourceand Environmental Management. Hiswork seeks to understand how naturaland human mediated processes inter-act to shape ecological dynamics.

Two cups of coffee in, I headto Yard Creek in a SimonFraser University pick-upwith my two field assistantsearly one August morning

in 2006. I was nearing the end of myfirst field season; my PhD full ofpromise. The sun was beating down onthe Fraser Watershed just outside ofSalmon Arm, and I was eager to com-plete a full summer of surveying sock-eye spawning streams. As we hauledour gear down to the creek’s edge, Iimmediately noticed that the creekwas dotted with red – sockeye salmonreturning to spawn. This is the firsttime I saw sockeye salmon spawning,and I felt like a kid on Christmas morn-ing, brimming with excitement. Wehad other surveys to complete thatday, but we decided to spend the day atYard Creek, exploring and bearing wit-ness to this iconic event in nature. Theperseverance and power that thesesockeye exerted was palpable in theair. I felt a sense of honor and privilegewatching these magnificent animalsmate and prepare for death all in thesame moment. I sat on the bank of thecreek and watched them inch closertowards their fate as I contemplatedthe future of these animals.

Historically, the Fraser River hasbeen one of the most productive sock-eye salmon watersheds in the world.The vast Fraser River basin, occupy-

ing nearly two-thirds of BritishColumbia, is home to 200-plus popula-tions of sockeye salmon. Commercial,First Nations, and more recently,recreational fishermen, have reapedthe benefits of these fish over theyears, catching collectively, on aver-age, an astounding 4.5 million fish peryear, and in some years upwards of 15million (1946-1989). But by 2009, thistime of plenty had passed, and manyFraser River sockeye populations hadexperienced an enigmatic decline inproductivity, a disturbing trend thathad actually begun in the early 1990s.

During this recent period of low pro-ductivity, we have seen dramaticrestrictions to both commercial andFirst Nations fisheries catches. A par-ticularly troubling year was 2009,when it was predicted that 10.5 millionsockeye would return to the FraserRiver, but only 1.5 million fish reachedit to spawn in the more than 200 spawn-ing locations throughout the FraserBasin, the lowest number of sockeye toreturn since 1947 when modernrecords began. This decline in abun-dance put immense pressure on abo-riginal and commercial fishing com-munities that depended on sockeye forfood, social, and ceremonial purposes,as well as their livelihoods. This wasthe last straw; one of the greatestsalmon producing watersheds in theworld was in trouble and people want-

ed to know what was happening totheir fish. The problem was that no onereally knew why these populationswere declining and the various possi-ble explanations quickly became over-whelming. Reports of seal predation,over-spawning, climate change,adverse ocean conditions, algalblooms, pathogens, competition, illegalfishing, salmon farms, freshwater con-ditions, sewage, and even volcanoes aspossible culprits flooded the media.The alarming returns of sockeye in

2009 prompted the establishment of afederal judicial inquiry by Canada’sPrime Minister Stephen Harper, to“identify the reasons for the decline ofthe Fraser River sockeye salmon popu-lations,” kicking off a $26.4 milliontwo- and a half-year process to get tothe bottom of the issue. The CohenCommission, as it came to be known(Bruce Cohen, a justice of the SupremeCourt of British Columbia, wasappointed Commissioner of the pro-ceedings), was tasked with reviewingwhat was already known about Frasersockeye, and calling witnesses andcommissioning reports to enable thecommissioner to make “independentfindings of fact” about the causes ofthe decline and the role managementplayed in conserving Fraser Riversockeye salmon.

Other groups also sat up and tooknotice. Simon Fraser University host-ed workshops in late 2009 to gain anunderstanding of why we saw suchdrastically low returns that year, aswell as the reasons behind the two-decade decline. Experts from acrossNorth America attended to presentideas on topics ranging from seal pre-dation to volcanoes, and qualitativelyconsidered the likelihood that “their”factor contributed to either the devas-tating returns in 2009 and/or the two-decade decline in Fraser sockeye sur-vival. Along with Brendan Conners, Iwas fortunate enough to attend these



Historically, theFraser River has been

one of the most productive sockeyesalmon fisheries in the world.

The Highs and Lows of Fraser River Sockeye Salmon

By Douglas Braun and Brendan Conners— Simon Fraser University —

workshops, furiously taking notes forthe organizers in an effort to recordthe wealth of information that cameout during the workshop. Those work-shops provided us with the idea thatwould ultimately result in a study link-ing pink salmon abundance and expo-sure to farmed salmon to the declinesin Fraser sockeye. However, our firstchallenge was to decide which of themany hypotheses to include in ouranalyses, with some being more plausi-ble than others.

Fortuitously, the Pacific SalmonCommission organized an ExpertPanel in June 2010 to evaluate possiblecauses of declining Fraser River sock-eye. The panel synthesized the evi-dence for and against the long list ofpossible agents and narrowed the listdown to four that were deemed themost likely: 1) Over-spawning – thenegative effect that a large abundanceof spawners might have on their juve-niles and the juveniles of subsequentspawners. This might arise when juve-nile sockeye from a large brood yearconsume all the food in a nursery lakeleaving very little for juvenile sockeyethat enter the lake in following years.In recent years due to shifts in man-agement approaches (e.g., reducedfishing pressure), a greater number offish have made it to their spawninggrounds, potentially increasing thisdelayed negative effect. 2) Ocean con-ditions – it is well established that sur-vival is influenced by conditions expe-rienced by salmon soon after theyenter the ocean. Sea surface tempera-ture (SST) is an index of the biologicalconditions salmon experience early inlife with cool waters typically beingrich in high quality food and warmerwaters composed of poor quality foodresources. Increasing SST over thepast couple of decades has thereforeled to concerns that the ocean hasbecome increasingly less hospitablefor juvenile sockeye. 3) Pathogens –disease outbreaks can occur naturallyin wild Pacific salmon, and work byDFO highlighted the potential rolepathogens may play in influencingmortality of adult sockeye returning tospawn. Research elsewhere has sug-gested pathogens (viruses, bacteria,and parasites) from salmon farms maycontribute to declining wild salmon

productivity, and the increase in poten-tial hosts for pathogens as a result ofintensive salmon aquaculture alongFraser sockeye migration routes couldlead to increased exposure to diseasefor wild sockeye. Though little isknown about pathogens in wild salmon,these tantalizing bits of evidence led toconcerns that salmon aquaculture mayplay a role in pathogen transmissionfrom farmed to wild salmon. 4)Competition with pink salmon –despite concerns about salmon at thesouthern end of the range, the abun-dance of Pacific salmon across theNorth Pacific is actually at an all timehigh. This has led to concerns thatincreasing numbers of salmon, includ-ing ocean ranched and hatchery pro-

duced fish, may be reaching or exceed-ing the biological carrying capacity ofthe North Pacific Ocean. The mostabundant species of salmon are pinksalmon (or pinks), which are consid-ered “super” competitors. Pinks growfast, boast high feeding rates, matureearly, and are often one step ahead ofother Pacific salmon species withrespect to their migration habits. Theirhigh feeding rates can alter the distri-bution and abundance of prey leavinglittle food for other species of salmonto consume. In fact, pink salmon abun-dance has been linked to shifts in diet,delayed maturation, reduced growthand survival of other Pacific salmonspecies, including sockeye. Pinksalmon are the most abundant Pacificsalmon species, and since the 1970stheir abundance in the North Pacifichas been on the rise, peaking in 2005 atmore than 600 million across the NorthPacific and leading to speculation thatpinks were outcompeting Fraser sock-eye.

We diligently set about the task ofcompiling data on each of the factors

identified by the Pacific SalmonCommission to quantify the weight ofevidence for each of the four hypothe-ses put forward to explain theobserved declines in Fraser sockeye.Early on we recognized that it wasunlikely that any single factor wouldbe operating in isolation; it was moreplausible that multiple factors may actin concert, with their effects possiblyoffsetting or compounding each other.In addition to Fraser sockeye we con-sidered sockeye populations fromother parts of British Columbia andWashington State to give us morepower to test each hypothesis, becausesockeye populations from otherregions varied in their relationshipwith things like ocean conditions andexposure to farmed salmon.When we had finished crunching the

numbers we were surprised by whatwe found. Our analyses suggested thatincreasing ocean-basin-scale competi-tion with pink salmon in the NorthPacific Ocean (which have more thandoubled in abundance since the 1960s)has occurred along with reduced pro-ductivity of Fraser sockeye. This sug-gested that increasing competitionwith pink salmon for a finite amount offood in the open ocean was leading tolower survival of Fraser River sock-eye.We also confirmed what had been pre-

viously known: increasing ocean tem-perature early in life reduces survival,but the effect of warming oceans isweaker than increasing numbers ofpink salmon. However the real sur-prise of our analyses was that the neg-ative effect of pink salmon on sockeyeproductivity was made worse by high-er numbers of farmed salmon that wildFraser sockeye migrate past early inmarine life. What this suggested is thatjuvenile sockeye that are exposed tosalmon farms early in marine life maypick up pathogens that make them lessable to compete for resources withpink salmon later on in the ocean.Alternatively less food as a result ofcompetition with pink salmon in theopen ocean may lead to the “expres-sion” of disease in sockeye that areinfected but not in a diseased state. Itappeared as though the impact of expo-sure to salmon farms was mediated bythe abundance of pink salmon competi-tors such that an effect of salmon




Our data suggestedthat increasing

competition with pinksalmon in the oceancoincided with Fraser

sockeye declines.

farms was not readily distinguishableon its own.You might ask, “If pink salmon are

affecting Fraser sockeye out in theocean, why aren’t other populationsdeclining as well?” It turns out thedecline in sockeye productivity ismore widespread than just the FraserBasin. Another recent study by one ofour co-authors, Randall Peterman,looked at 64 sockeye populations fromWashington State through Alaska andfound that many of the sockeye popu-lations across the North Pacific areexperiencing declines in productivity,but not as steeply as some Fraser pop-ulations, lending further support forthe pink salmon hypothesis.At the time when we began this study,

Fraser River sockeye had captivated anational audience and had never gar-nered so much attention, time, exper-tise, and money being directed towardtheir plight. Then the unthinkable hap-pened. On the back of the lowestreturns on record and apparent vergeof collapse, sockeye returned to theFraser River in record numbers (29million!). Though their abundance in2010 was impressive, the productivity(returning adults per spawner) of the2006 brood year that produced therecord returns was only slightly abovethe long-term average. In other words,a large number of spawners in 2006gave rise to the large returns in 2010,but this was not an extraordinaryevent. This point eluded the media andwas not communicated well to the pub-lic. This unexpected event provided uswith an opportunity to see how wellour analyses stood up to the amazingspectacle of almost 30 million salmonreturning to spawn. In other words,could our analyses predict the produc-tivity of the generation of Fraser sock-eye that return in record numbers in2010? Indeed the relationships wequantified did a surprisingly decentjob of predicting the productivity ofthe generation of sockeye thatreturned in 2012. While the 2010 returnwas an amazing event to bear witnessto, with the 20-year decline and lowreturns of 2009 being the backdrop for2010, it seemed as though this highabundance was an anomaly. In realitythe fantastic return was the result ofcautionary fisheries management,

allowing lots of fish to return to theirspawning grounds four years earlier,and the low abundance of pink salmoncompetitors in the North Pacific, whichwas about half the number of pinksthat competed with sockeye thatreturned in record low numbers in2009.Though our research is the most com-

prehensive examination of the driversof declines in Fraser sockeye conduct-ed to date, it is important to rememberthat our results are correlative and arenot necessarily evidence of causalmechanisms. Our findings are a criti-cal first step towards understandingwhat may have caused the reductionsin Fraser sockeye productivity andreturns. As a result we are hopeful thatmanagers, scientists, the CohenCommission, and the public will seevalue in using our study as the founda-tion upon which further research intounderlying mechanisms driving year-over-year declines in Fraser sockeyecan be based. Specifically, futureresearch should more closely examinethe mechanisms and evidence for andagainst the hypotheses of competition,interaction with farmed salmon, andsea-surface temperature.

Fast forward to the present. TheCohen Commission released their finalreport on October 29, 2012. This reportconsidered all 160 witnesses’ testi-monies, 900 public submissions, 2100exhibits, and 14,000 pages of tran-scripts. This massive amount of infor-mation has been summarized into rec-ommendations that include “…changesto the policies, practices and proce-dures of the Department of Fisheriesand Oceans in relation to the manage-ment of the Fraser River sockeyesalmon fishery.” It is our hope that therecommendations made by theCommission will help rethink the waysalmon are managed so as to reflect thefact that salmon do not respect inter-national boundaries. We need to movetowards international cooperation inthe management of salmon, whichwould recognize that there is a finiteamount of food in the ocean. In addi-tion, because our research suggeststhat passing close to salmon farmsearly in life may weaken the ability ofsockeye to compete for food with pinksalmon in the open ocean, we need toalso move towards management thatappreciates the real world complexity

of life in the ocean, where the condi-tions salmon experience early in lifecan influence the outcome of experi-ences later in life. Perhaps mostimportantly our research argues forlarge-scale experimental manipulationof farmed-salmon production coupledwith an increased understanding ofwhere and when pathogens occur inwild and farmed salmon to more defin-itively assess the effects of salmonaquaculture on sockeye salmon.

Glossary

Adult returns – Number of matureadult salmon that return to the coastprior to the onset of fishing.

Recruits – For a given sockeye salmonpopulation (i.e., "stock"), abundance ofadults (also referred to as "recruits") ascalculated by summing the estimatednumber of spawners with abundancesof fish that were caught in various fish-eries (where the population of origin isidentified by methods such as fishscales and genetic identification).

Productivity – The ratio of adultreturns (recruits) to the number ofspawners that produced them. Thisratio reflects the combination of sur-vival rates across the entire life span,i.e., both the freshwater and post-juve-nile stages.

Spawners – The fish that are not caughtin fisheries and make it to their natalstreams to reproduce. When referringto Fraser River sockeye, this abun-dance is in units of Effective FemaleSpawners (EFS), which are the numberof females that successfully spawned.Brood year – The year that sockeyespawned. For example, Fraser sockeyefrom the 2005 brood year primarilyreturned to spawn in 2009.

Additional information on the CohenCommission:

Cohen Commission official website -http://www.cohencommission.ca/

Watershed Watch Salmon Society -h t t p : / / w w w . w a t e r s h e d -watch.org/resources/cohen-inquiry-highlights/



http://www.watershed-watch.org/resources/cohen-inquiry-highlights/



http://www.cohencommission.ca/

Author Tom Kahler is a FisheriesBiologist with Douglas County PUD inEast Wenatchee, WA, where he imple-ments the fish-passage and habitatcomponents of the Wells HydroelectricProject Habitat Conservation Plan.Tom is also a member of the UpperColumbia Salmon Recovery Board’sRegional Technical Team that sets pri-orities for and reviews and scores pro-posals for habitat actions in theWenatchee, Entiat, Methow, andOkanogan river basins

The Okanagan population ofsockeye salmon(Oncorhynchus nerka) isone of only three remainingpopulations of the eight

(Fulton 1970) or ten (Gustafson et al.2007) that once occupied the ColumbiaRiver Basin. Of the remaining three,only the Okanagan and Wenatchee pop-ulations remain viable, with the third,the Redfish Lake population, substan-tially bolstered by hatchery produc-tion and representing less than onepercent of the annual sockeye returnsto the Columbia.

Though a viable population,Okanagan sockeye occupy only a frac-tion of their former habitat. Since1921, Okanagan sockeye have rearedin Osoyoos Lake, the smallest of threemajor lakes in the Okanagan RiverBasin and the adults have spawned inthe Okanagan River between Vaseuxand Osoyoos lakes. Prior to the con-struction of dams at the outlet ofOkanagan Lake in 1915 and Skaha andVaseux lakes in 1921, Okanagan sock-eye also reared in Okanagan and Skahalakes (Fulton 1970; Bull 1999) and uti-lized spawning habitat both in theOkanagan River and several tribu-taries to Okanagan Lake.Channelization of all but 6 km of theOkanagan River between OsoyoosLake and McIntyre Dam in 1954 forflood-control purposes further reducedspawning habitat. Nevertheless,

researchers (Hyatt and Rankin 1999)estimated that even the limited spawn-ing habitat remaining could support aminimum capacity of 135,471 spawn-ers (calibrated to adults counted atWells Dam) and the rearing habitat inOsoyoos Lake could support the proge-ny from an estimated minimumescapement (Wells counts) of 117,453spawners. Hyatt and Rankin (1999)noted that despite the estimated capac-ity of the habitat, neither of theseescapement objectives had beenachieved since counts commenced atWells Dam in 1967.

Annual counts of adult Okanagansockeye at Wells Dam have fluctuatedsomewhat regularly over time, reach-ing a low of 1,662 in 1994 (Figure 1). In1997 the National Marine FisheriesService considered an EndangeredSpecies Act listing, but concluded thatdespite three consecutive years of lowreturns, the population remainedviable, not warranting a listing at thetime (Gustafson et al. 1997). Adultcounts of Okanagan sockeye averaged30,202 from 1977 to 2007, representingapproximately 56 percent of the totalannual run to the Columbia RiverBasin during that period. For compar-ison, escapement of Wenatchee Riversockeye averaged 23,271 during thatsame period, representing approxi-mately 43 percent of the total annualrun to the Columbia River Basin.During this 31 year period the two pop-

ulations generally tracked one another(see Figure 1). However, beginning inreturn-year 2008, the Okanagan sock-eye run-counts diverged dramaticallyfrom the Wenatchee sockeye counts,posting two record returns at WellsDam (2010 and 2012) and setting a five-year average count of over 200,000.During this period Okanagan sockeyehave comprised approximately 90 per-cent of the total return to the ColumbiaRiver Basin, while the annual counts ofthe Wenatchee stock remain consistentwith historic inter-annual variation,and Snake River returns continue torepresent less than one percent of theColumbia Basin total.The obvious question posed by these

data is, what has changed since themid-2000s that would affect only theOkanagan sockeye population to resultin such a sizable increase in adultreturns? The short answer: the imple-mentation of a water-managementmodel in the Canadian Okanagan haseliminated or at least minimized densi-ty-independent mortality factors thatroutinely and often profoundly limitedpast smolt production from theOkanagan Basin. The long answer is astory of the collaborative developmentand success of a non-traditional miti-gation measure, and of the resilienceof wild salmon.

Public Utility District No. 1 ofDouglas County, Washington, (DouglasPUD) owns and operates the WellsHydroelectric Project, the upstream-most dam on the Columbia River thatprovides fish passage. In 1990 DouglasPUD signed a long-term settlementagreement with fish managementagencies and tribes specifyingDouglas PUD’s measures to mitigatefor losses to fisheries resources associ-ated with passage of Wells Dam. ForOkanagan sockeye, the WellsSettlement Agreement specified annu-al hatchery production of 200,000smolts. After only a few years of


Implementing a watermanagement model has

eliminated many mortality factors that limited sockeye smoltproduction in the past.

Success of a Non-Traditional Mitigation Project for Okanagan Sockeye Salmon

By Tom Kahler— Public Utility District No. 1, Douglas County, Washington —


attempting to achieve those hatchery-production goals, Douglas PUD real-ized that they needed to seek othermeasures for meeting their mitigationcommitments for Okanagan sockeye,and they began working with Canadiancollaborators to identify viableoptions.

In the 1990s Douglas PUD fundednumerous studies in the U.S. and

Canada with the intent of defining thelife-history attributes of Okanagansockeye and of identifying factors thatlimit sockeye survival during the phas-es of their life cycle that they experi-ence at and upstream of Wells Dam. In1996, three of Douglas PUD’s Canadiancollaborators (Canada Department ofFisheries and Oceans [DFO]; BritishColumbia Ministry of Water, Land andAir Protection [Ministry]; andOkanagan Nation FisheriesCommission [now represented by theOkanagan Nation Alliance—ONA])organized into the Canadian OkanaganBasin Technical Working Group(COBTWG) to more effectivelyaddress salmon stock and habitatrestoration issues in the CanadianOkanagan River Basin. As a culmina-tion of the sockeye limiting-factorsand life-history studies completed dur-

ing the 1990s, Douglas PUD fundedGlenfir Resources to develop a list ofoptions for protecting and restoringsalmon habitat as a means to enhancethe production of Okanagan sockeye inCanada. The resultant Phase I report(Bull 1999) presented 18 enhancementand protection options for considera-tion by the COBTWG from which theCOBTWG identified a “short list” ofoptions that received more detailed

investigation in a Phase II report. Forthat short-list the COBTWG narroweddown the options to eight thataddressed three primary factors: pre-spawn mortality, mortality from reddscouring, and habitat improvement. Tounderstand the reason why redd scourmade the short list, one must under-stand the basics of water managementin the Canadian Okanagan River Basin.The Canadian Okanagan River origi-

nates at the outlet of Okanagan Lake,with river discharge controlled byOkanagan Lake Dam as the “spigot”for the Okanagan Lake RegulationSystem (OLRS). The OLRS is managedby the Ministry, and comprises severalsediment basins, multiple grade-con-trol structures, and four dams (onKalamalka, Okanagan, Skaha, andVaseux lakes). The Ministry managesthe OLRS to, 1) protect fisheries

resources, including kokanee inOkanagan Lake, and sockeye; 2) con-trol flooding of both lake shores andriver/tributary floodplains; 3) providewater for domestic and irrigation use;and 4) maintain flows for navigationand tourism/recreation uses. The 1974Okanagan Basin ImplementationAgreement (OBIA) delineates the man-agement terms for the OLRS, defininginstream-flow requirements and lake-elevation levels for the four manage-ment objectives listed above, andspecifically for spawning and incuba-tion of both sockeye in the river andkokanee on lake shores. The Phase II “short-list” report for

the COBTWG described the frequencyof OLRS deviations from the OBIAflow objectives, indicating that poten-tially substantial increases in sockeyeand kokanee production could resultfrom avoiding those frequent devia-tions or by providing sockeye with apredictable spawning and incubationenvironment such as a spawning chan-nel. Density-independent mortalityevents resulted from those deviationsfrom flow targets, including redd des-iccation/freezing and scour duringincubation, and reduced suitability oravailability of spawning habitat. Theseverity of the consequences for sock-eye production from flow-managementdecisions became apparent oneOctober day when Douglas PUD biolo-gists encountered dewatered sockeyeredds and dead and stranded spawnersin the primary spawning area immedi-ately below McIntyre Dam. Watermanagers had closed the dam gates tofacilitate maintenance activities andthe flow below the dam comprised onlyseepage through the dam, groundwa-ter input, and inflows from a small trib-utary.The COBTWG recognized that better

flow management could reduce the fre-quency and magnitude of those densi-ty-independent mortality events, butthe sometimes-competing manage-ment objectives and the lack of readilyavailable data impeded the achieve-ment of improved flow management.For water managers, OBIA flood-con-trol objectives necessitated anticipat-ing the spring freshet to avoid floodinglakeshore and riverside communities;yet, releasing too much water beforesockeye fry emergence resulted in




Figure 1.Escapement of Okanagan River (Canada; solid line) and Wenatchee River(dashed line) sockeye, return years 1977 through 2012.

redd scouring. Even the fisheries-resource objectives competed. Forexample, achieving the lake levels tominimize desiccation of kokanee reddsin Okanagan Lake required waterreleases in the fall that interfered withsockeye staging or spawning. Evenwith defined targets for each water-management objective, water man-agers lacked the real-time data and ananalysis platform that would allowthem to respond to rapidly changinghydraulic conditions and consistentlyattain flow objectives.In 2000 the COBTWG recommended

to Douglas PUD their preferred optionfor meeting sockeye ecosystem-restoration objectives in the CanadianOkanagan: the development of a water-management model that would facili-tate the routine achievement of flowobjectives for sockeye and kokaneewithout compromising other OBIAobjectives. Later that year, Dr. KimHyatt of DFO, leading a steering com-mittee of the COBTWG, presentedDouglas PUD with a proposal to devel-op an internet-based, multi-user deci-sion-support model for use by thesteering committee and operators ofthe OLRS to manage water in theOkanagan River Basin. The model,called the Fish-Water ManagementTool (FWMT) would comprise a set offive linked biophysical sub-models: 1)Climate and Hydrology, 2) OkanaganWater Management Rules, 3) Climateand Water Temperature, 4) KokaneeEgg-to-fry Emergence, and 5) Sockeye.Each sub-model would require sub-stantial data to develop and imple-ment, and the FWMT proposal includ-ed both the initial data collection tosupport sub-model development andthe creation of the necessary infra-structure and research programs toprovide real-time and near real-timephysical and biological data for long-term implementation of the FWMT.Fisheries professionals on theCOBTWG FWMT Steering Committeeand Ministry water managers wouldaccess the FWMT via the internet and,using that supporting data, would run,share, and discuss water-forecastingmodel-scenarios to inform water-man-agement decisions in a collaborativeenvironment. The FWMT would pro-vide users with both the data and thecomputational tools to forecast the

probable outcomes of water-manage-ment actions and the consequences ofthose outcomes for all OLRS resourceresponsibilities.

FWMT proponents estimated anaverage gain of 10-15 percent in sock-eye smolt production would resultfrom FWMT implementation. Usingthat estimate of anticipated gain,Douglas PUD sought and receivedapproval from the parties to the 1990Settlement Agreement (replaced in2004 by the Wells HabitatConservation Plan [HCP]) for thedevelopment of the FWMT as a mitiga-tion alternative. With Douglas PUDfunding, the FWMT SteeringCommittee commenced data collection

and model development in 2001. Thatsame year, Douglas PUD released thelast of their hatchery sockeye intoOsoyoos Lake. By 2004, the FWMTwas ready for real-time testing, andthe FWMT Steering Committee com-pleted a retrospective analysis withthe FWMT using data from the previ-ous 25 water years (Hyatt andAlexander 2005). The retrospectiveanalysis estimated the relative changein smolt production that would haveresulted from each historic sockeyebrood year had OLRS operators usedthe FWMT to manage water in theOkanagan Basin during that year. Theresults of the retrospective analysisfound an average annual increase insmolt production of 55 percent overthe 25-year period. Full implementa-tion of the FWMT as the decision-mak-ing tool for operators of the OLRScommenced in water year 2005(October 2004-September 2005), andhas continued each year since. Brood-year 2004 Okanagan sockeye

spawned in October 2004. One hun-

dred forty-five thousand of their prog-eny returned over Wells Dam in 2008,the first year of divergence of theOkanagan sockeye returns from theWenatchee sockeye returns as depict-ed in Figure 1. Canadian fish and watermanagers have continued the annualimplementation of the FWMT in eachwater year since 2005, and returnsfrom each respective brood year havein most cases dramatically exceeded100,000 at Wells Dam. AnnualCOBTWG hydroacoustic-survey esti-mates of sockeye smolt productionfrom Osoyoos Lake have increasedfrom pre-FWMT values of approxi-mately 300,000 smolts to post-FWMT-implementation values of 3,000,000 toover 8,000,000 smolts (smolt-migrationyear 2010). Estimates of FWMT per-formance in the retrospective analysis(Hyatt and Alexander 2005) had esti-mated changes for each of the 25 yearsof historical data in isolation, notaccounting for the cumulativeimprovement in smolt production overtime resulting from increases in adultescapement, such as began in 2008. The substantial reduction in density-

independent mortality of sockeye fromredd desiccation and scour eventsresulting from FWMT implementationhas fueled the remarkable recovery ofthe Okanagan sockeye population.With the FWMT, OLRS managers havealso prevented devastating fry- andadult-mortality events that occurredannually in the North Basin of OsoyoosLake in late summer when expansionof the anoxic hypolimnion encroachesupon the thermocline squeezing thehabitable zone for sockeye. [Editor’sNote: Anoxic hypolimnion refers to lowdissolved oxygen levels in the watercolumn from the bottom of the lakeupward. If this low oxygen regionexpands upward toward the thermo-cline in the summer months, it limitsthe suitable area for juvenile coldwaterfish; bottom water is too oxygen poorfor them to survive and surface wateris too hot and they are squeezed into anarrow band of suitable habitat result-ing in low survival.] Using FWMT fore-casting, ORLS managers can retainwater in Okanagan Lake until late sum-mer and release it in a pulse that miti-gates the “squeeze,” increasing thevolume of the habitable zone.Canadian users now consider theFWMT an indispensable component of




The Fish-WaterManagement Tool as an alternative to traditional hatchery-centered mitigation has proven to be a spectacular success.

THE OSPREY

PHONE

E-Mail

CITY/STATE/ZIP

NAME

I am a . . .

❏ Citizen Conservationist

❏ Commercial Outfitter/Guide

❏ Professional Natural Resources Mgr.

❏ Other

ADDRESS

Thanks For Your Support

The Osprey — Steelhead Committee Federation of Fly Fishers

5237 US Hwy 89 South, Suite 11Livingston, MT 59047-9176

To receive The Osprey, please return this coupon with your check made out to The Osprey - FFF

If you are a new subscriber, how did you hear aboutThe Osprey?

❏ Friend or fellow angler

❏ Fishing show

❏ Fly shop, lodge or guide

❏ Another publication.Which?

❏ Club or conservation group meeting

❏ Other

Yes, I will help protect wild steelhead

❏ $15 Basic Subscription

❏ $25 Dedicated Angler Level

❏ $50 For Future Generations of Anglers

❏ $100 If I Put Off Donating, My Fish

Might Not Return Home

❏ $ Other, Because

I Am a New Subscriber q

I Am An Existing Subscriber

Send My Copies By E-Mail (PDF Electronic Version) q

Send My Copies by Standard Mail (Hardcopy) q q



been left to manage steelhead popula-tions with a blindfold on. As anglers and advocates in the 21st

century, it is incumbent upon us to putstewardship and conservation at theforefront, and if catch and releasesport fisheries do indeed jeopardizethe persistence of a population, theyshould be closed. But the reality is, onsome of the larger populations of steel-head in Puget Sound, catch and releasemanaged under selective regulationswould have a negligible impact on wildpopulations of steelhead, while stillallowing three months of anglingopportunity — a core part of WDFW’smission. This lost opportunity deprivesdepressed communities of economicopportunities and alienates one of thedepartment’s core constituencies,

steelhead anglers. State agencies areunderstandably under duress and inmany instances managers are doingthe best they can with limit data andresources. However, we need to askmore of WDFW. As our state fisheriesmanagement agency, they must beadvocates for the recovery of wild fishbut also for sport fisheries. In a chang-ing and evermore crowded world,WDFW needs to recognize the impor-tance and utility of catch and releasefisheries as a means of providingangling opportunity while minimizingimpacts on fragile populations of steel-head. We won’t see a steelhead fisheryon the Skagit this winter, but in start-ing this conversation now with WDFWwe can work together with the state toensure that we are providing opportu-nities while simultaneously workingtowards recovery of listed stocks.

the OLRS, appreciating the benefits ofsubstantially increased sockeye abun-dance, a resurgence of lakeshore-spawning kokanee, and the avoidanceof lakeshore and riverine flooding. TheOkanagan Basin escaped damage fromdevastating floods that ravaged neigh-boring basins in Interior BritishColumbia in 2006 because of the fore-casting power of the FWMT. Canadianresearchers are now using theprospective capabilities of the FWMTto model climate-change scenarios tofacilitate resource planning.The FWMT as an alternative to tradi-

tional hatchery-centered mitigationhas proven a spectacular success byremoving the human-induced impedi-ments that suppressed the inherentproductivity of the natural-originOkanagan sockeye, allowing them torebound to at or above their historicabundance. Because the benefits of theFWMT accrue during the freshwaterphases of the sockeye life-cycle,improvements in smolt productionresulting from FWMT implementationshould allow for much larger returnsof Okanagan sockeye relative to pre-FWMT levels even when ocean condi-tions cycle through less favorablestates in the future. The COBTWGparties who collect input data andmaintain and operate the FWMT withfunding from Douglas PUD, and makethe day-to-day water-managementdecisions, are committed to long-termimplementation of the FWMT. Thiscommitment ensures continued bene-fits to sockeye and other OLRS stake-holders. The COBTWG’s success withthe FWMT is evident in the resurgenceof Okanagan sockeye and kokanee, andthey deserve and have received recog-nition in the form of a 2008 BritishColumbia Premier’s Award, and a 2011Murray A. Newman Award forExcellence in Aquatic Research andConservation for significant achieve-ment in aquatic conservation.Douglas PUD will soon post on their

webpage (http://www.dcpud.org/) anumber of videos documenting thedevelopment and operation of theFWMT.

Chair’s CornerContinued from page 3

http://www.dcpud.org/

THE OSPREY

Federation of Fly Fishers5237 US Hwy 89 South, Suite 11Livingston, MT 59047-9176

Address Service Requested

Non-Profit Org.U.S. Postage Paid

PAIDBozeman, MTPermit No. 99

2012 HONORS LISTThe Osprey wishes to thank the dedi-

cated people and organizations whogave their financial support in 2012.

Our readers are our primary source offunding. It’s pretty remarkable that ourhome-grown journal, which only comes outthree times a year, has developed such agenerous following. Don’t think we’re notgrateful, and a bit humbled.We have always skated on thin financial

ice, and will continue to do so. But withoutyour support we fold up. The usual dona-tion envelope is provided. Whatever youcan afford will be much appreciated (andused wisely).

$1000 and greater

Nicholas H. Anderson

$200 to $499

Howard A. JohnsonPeter BroomhallWashington Steelhead Flyfishers

$100 to $199

Craig ErdmanDoug SchaadJay H. BecksteadDale Greenley

Scott HagenCharles KellerJon B. LundJerry E. ReevesPaul J. UtzTom WhiteWashington-British Columbia Chapter, American Fisheres Society

$50 to $99

Harold BoswellDavid ChristianRonald DyslinStephen M. EggeMichael GabrionLawrence C. HillDacid JohnsonArt LingrenDavid W. NarverRon E. SchwarzLory WatkinsRichard N. Williams

$15 to $49

John O.G. JenkinsYancy LindKevin D. BakerRichard A. BennettRobert L. BettzigJeff Bright

Greg ConnollyMichael CrissyRaymond EvansJim HoschouerRichard E. JohnsonVance J. LuffGerald B. MahonyNathan MantuaRobert J. MasonisR.J. PetrilloRobert SheeleyDonald J. StarkinJon WilliamsDale TimberlakeGreg ConnollyLarry BrownPat FordRichard WattsKeith BeverlyFred CarterEd HeidelTeresa KaszaWilliam LenheimPat HoglundMargaret FilardoDavid BorokowskiMarty DegregorioDale WatkinsKevin EastmanTodd Brown

the ospreyospreysteelhead.org/archives/theospreyissue74.pdf · decades of depressed steelhead abun...

Documents