Future of Our Salmon Conference Portland, OR Oct 17, 2012

1. Future of Our Salmon Conference Portland, OR Oct 17, 2012 Why Artificial Propagation? Gary James, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation DNR, Fisheries Program Manager

2. Why Art. Prop. – Topics Covered • Columbia Basin habitat & salmon survival • Social-Economic-Treaty Impacts • Fish recovery standards • Traditional, Ecological, Cultural & Science Values • Purposes and Types of Hatcheries • Right and Wrong Hatchery Practices • Defining Hatchery Program Success • Survival Benefits of Hatchery Supplementation • Risk vs. Benefit - An impact or a Recovery Tool? • Sturgeon, Lamprey and Freshwater Mussels

3. What has happened to Columbia Basin habitat? • Over 1,000 dams have been constructed since the late 1800’s. • There are 13 mainstem Columbia and Snake River dams. • Only 55% of once-available habitat is still accessible today. • About 65% of remaining accessible mainstem Columbia and Snake River habitat has been transformed to reservoirs/pools • Common tributary limiting factors due to floodplain development are poor water quantity/quality and lack of stream channel complexity.

5. What has happened to Columbia Basin salmon & steelhead? • Major loss in habitat quantity • Major loss in habitat quality • Two spawners often don’t replace themselves (deficit returns) • 23 populations have become extinct • 176 populations are ESA-listed as threatened or endangered • 61% of accessible areas contains ESA-listed populations • Past runs of 15M are now about 1.5M (about 80% hatchery)

6. Social-Economic-Treaty Impacts • Once productive usual & accustomed fishing areas closed • Reduced harvest in remaining open areas • Former Native American harvest of 4-6M now about .25M • Priority ceremonial & subsistence needs for fish, a critical “first food”, is sometimes not met • Reduced economic input from sport & commercial fisheries

7. Fish Population Trajectories >1:1 Positive Rebuilding Trend

8. Trajectory of Fish Recovery Programs Plus Full Harvest Subbasin Plan Goals ESA Delist Min. Viable Threshold

9. Fish Recovery Levels/Standards

10. Using Traditional, Ecological, Cultural & Science Values Tribes utilize all these to develop and implement programs addressing holistic needs: • Goals focused on First Food abundance for traditional/cultural/religious use • Target maintenance of harvest opportunities as per treaty right • Target higher escapement/habitat utilization for full ecological function • Implement comprehensive fish restoration strategies - all H/gravel-to-gravel • Emphasis on habitat improvements along with hatchery supplementation where necessary to support rebuilding • Seek benefits of using hatchery tool while minimizing risks to wild fish

11. CTUIR DNR/Fisheries Missions & River Vision DNR: To protect, restore, and enhance the First Foods water, salmon, deer, cous, and huckleberry - for the perpetual cultural, economic, and sovereign benefit of the CTUIR. We will accomplish this utilizing traditional ecological and cultural knowledge and science to inform: 1) population and habitat management goals and actions; and 2) natural resource policies and regulatory mechanisms. Fisheries: To provide sustainable harvest opportunities for aquatic species of the first food order by protecting, conserving, and restoring native aquatic populations and their habitats. Umatilla River Vision: “ The Umatilla basin includes a healthy river capable of providing First Foods that sustain the continuity of the Tribe’s culture. This vision requires a river that is dynamic, and shaped not only by physical and biological processes, but the interactions and interconnections between those processes.”

12. Comprehensive Restoration Strategy Fish Passage Improvements Instream Flow Enhancement Artificial Propagation – Salmon Reintroduction Watershed Protection and Restoration Floodplain Habitat Enhancement Harvest Management Monitoring and Evaluation

13. Purpose of Hatcheries To compensate for impacts of reduced or lost fish production and productivity due to human actions (dam construction, habitat degradation, etc.) • Recovery tool to help rebuild natural production (wild fish nurseries) • Mitigation tool to help achieve harvestable populations • Hatcheries don’t fix factors that reduced productivity • We don’t have low fish productivity because of hatcheries, we have hatcheries because of low productivity

14. Hatchery Program Types 1. Harvest Augmentation Programs • Fish on the table - production for harvest to replace lost natural production 2. Reintroduction Programs • Fish in habitat and fish on the table - production for harvest and natural spawning in areas that had experienced extirpation 3. Supplementation Programs • Rebuild natural production and fish on the table - production to increase natural production and harvest for depressed populations

15. What Have We Learned? Wrong & Right Hatchery Practices • Past hatchery management mistakes: • Wrong purpose for hatchery type (try to supplement natural production with a harvest program) • - broodstock maladapted for target location • - select for specific size or run timing • - inappropriate juvenile release location • - hatchery tool still “tainted” due to past mistakes

16. What Have We Learned? Wrong & Right Hatchery Practices Sound hatchery management practices: • Select suitable source stock • For supplementation programs, integrate H & N components - select broodstock from cross section of run - integrate natural & hatchery origin returns into both broodstock and natural spawning population - acclimate juveniles to natural production areas - monitor program to inform adaptive management

17. Location of Mitchell Act Hatcheries Mitigation for upriver impacts provided fisheries in lower Columbia

18. Hatchery/Satellite Facilities in the Grande Ronde Basin Satellite acclimation/release facilities in natural production locations provide in-place/in-kind supplementation Lookingglass Hatchery Lostine River Upper Grande Ronde River CatherineCreek

19. Defining Hatchery Program Success • For Tribes, putting “fish on the table” or maintaining or increasing harvest opportunities in all usual and accustomed treaty fishing areas is an important success principle for all 3 types of hatchery programs. • Increasing spawners and rebuilding natural production to counter the effects of habitat impacts is another success principle. • Accomplish above using “best hatchery management practices” to minimize genetic impacts (accept some risk). • Lack of success = continued population declines, inability to delist or more extinctions.

20. Tribal Restoration Plan life history survival analysis • Most impacted life history stages (~80% reduction) are: • - egg to smolt survival (in tributaries) • - juvenile passage (downstream survival in mainstem) • Overall adult to adult returns have changed from: • - 10-20 fold return pre-development era to • - Near 1:1 spawner-to-spawner replacement level • When populations are “near replacement” environmental circumstances become paramount

21. Survival Benefits of Hatchery Supplementation • The highest rate of natural mortality in the salmon lifecycle occurs in the egg-to-smolt stage (up to 90%) • Artificial propagation can reduce egg-to-smolt loss to ~10% • Although naturally spawning hatchery fish often produce fewer smolts/redd than wild spawners, the overall adult return from the supplementation program is higher. • Therefore, a reduced relative reproductive success (RRS) or recruits per spawner (R:S) may not be evidence that “supplementation treatment” is not working (or is working to the detriment of the natural population).

22. Supplementation Benefits Simple Concept (one fish – two fish) Spawners R:S Return Unsupplemented 100 .95 95 Supplemented 200 .75 150

23. Recruits per Spawner (R:S) Comparison Replacement (Supplementation)

24. Hatchery Benefit vs. Risk(recovery tool or impact?) • Risk of not using tool: • Continue deficit returns • Continue low natural production • Continue low/no harvest • Risk of using tool: • Reduced genetic diversity • Reduced productivity • (RRS & RS) • Benefits: • Demographic boost to natural spawning population • Avoid extinction, ESA listing or possibly delist • Reestablish fisheries in traditional locations Tribal Approach: Seek benefits of using hatchery tool while minimizing risks to wild fish

25. Sturgeon, Lamprey, Freshwater Musselsalso need artificial propagation help Sturgeon • Once-anadromous populations now exist in fragmented pools • Change from river to pool habitat has limited juvenile recruitment • Adult populations cannot be sustained at robust/harvestable levels Lamprey • An estimated 30-50% of adult lamprey are lost at each mainstem dam • Populations extirpated or severely declined in upriver tributaries • Tribes have initiated adult translocation and are planning artificial prop. Freshwater Mussels • Habitat degradation in mainstem and tributaries has also caused extirpation or severe declines in most subbasins • Once main habitat issues are addressed, mussels will need to be reintroduced

26. Questions? Protecting & Enhancing First Foods – Revival of Traditional Fisheries