Avian Predation Coordinator

The project is out of funding, although the task is not completed. Tasks associated with the project exceeded initial expectations of the amount of funding necessary to maintain tribal presence in the ongoing avian predation management process. CRITFC staff participated in two separate planning processes, one for the management of double crested cormorants (DCC) at East Sand Island, Columbia River. In 2011, approximately 26,000 birds were estimated to have consumed over 20.5 million salmon smolts. A multi-year effort for the management plan was recently (June 2012) halted by the Army Corps of Engineers, with a full EIS process to begin later this fall (October or November 2012).

The second planning process includes double crested cormorant and Caspian tern management in the interior of the Columbia River Basin, from the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers and north towards Grand Coulee Dam. Similar to the East Sand Island issue, the goal of CRITFC’s efforts in the Inland Avian Predation Work Group was working within the group to maximize smolt survival, albeit the magnitude of the impact is considerably less than that around East Sand Island, nearly all smolts eaten in the inland area are from listed stocks. Caspian terns at Potholes reservoir account for 10-15% of the losses of the entire outmigration of the upper Columbia River steelhead. Initial management plan efforts were focused on in-basin relocation of the terns, but still fully able to predate anadromous smolts from any location within the basin. Current efforts are now looking at out of basin relocation locations. The funding that was provided via the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund was well utilized and has helped to convince the Action Agencies the need to shift predatory bird populations out of the Columbia River Basin to areas where their impacts will pose the least impact to listed salmonid stocks.

Regarding avian predation, the target species are Chinook, coho, steelhead, sockeye, bull trout and Pacific lamprey. In some limited circumstances, some bird species, particularly double crested cormorants can be a predator on juvenile sturgeon. Currently, there are two separate, but related planning efforts for double crested cormorants and other bird species in the estuary and inland near the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers. Planning goals are a reduction in the rate and numbers of smolts of listed species eaten by cormorants and other waterbirds. Listed stocks are driving this planning effort, given their status in the Bi-Op, with some secondary concerns for non-listed smolts and Pacific lamprey, although not necessarily at the level of concern expressed by the tribes, particularly for Pacific lamprey. Controlling predation on listed salmonids is described as a reasonable and prudent measure in the 2008 Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion and expanded in the 2009 NOAA Fisheries FCRPS Adaptive Management Implementation Plan.