FY18 Salmonid Enhancement and Harvest Management Planning and Analysis

[Strait of Juan de Fuca Worksite] - Subtask actual start date = 1/1/20
Treaty Council staff will participated in the following harvest management activities necessary for the exercise of tribal-treaty fishing rights: preparation of stock status reports, recovery planning updates, and recovery implementation reports on progress of harvest and hatchery management of ESA-listed Puget Sound Chinook, Puget Sound Steelhead, and Hood Canal Summer Chum, as specified in approved recovery plans. This also includes technical involvement in developing harvest regulations, participation in hatchery and harvest management meetings and forums (including pre-season forecasting and participated in preseason planning processes for setting harvest management strategies contributing to salmon recovery), and participation in other relevant harvest and hatchery management planning processes. Work continued on drafting 5-year review of Summer Chum Salmon Conservation Initiative, and with the state and tribal co-managers on the development of a new Puget Sound Chinook Resource Management Plan.

Tribal staff assisted with harvest management efforts as necessary for exercising tribal-treaty fishing rights or native-subsistence fishing of anadromous salmonids. This included attending meetings and/or reviewing fishery data for harvest management planning purposes, or other related efforts.

[Dungeness Worksite] - Subtask actual start date = 7/1/20
The Tribe continued to assess the Dungeness Chinook Supplementation Program by evaluating coded wire tag recoveries and other information from carcass sampling to determine proportions of wild and hatchery Chinook returns spawning naturally, comparing to the proportions of wild and hatchery Chinook returns spawned for broodstock purposes, and using the information to adapt and plan future approaches to the supplementation/broodstock programs. The Tribe also reviewed activities in marine catch areas to help assure potential impacts from fisheries on ESA-listed species are minimized.

The goal of our harvest management planning is to develop strategies that, when implemented, will protect ESA-listed salmonids, and produce regulations that ultimately benefit ESA-listed salmonids. The harvest management planning, updates and analysis are recommended in approved recovery plans.

Evaluating carcass and tag data allows restoration planners to determine contributions from the naturally produced portion of Chinook returns, detect trends, and gage effects of the supplementation efforts on boosting abundance of Chinook populations. Analyses of wild verses hatchery returns will be used for adapting and planning future approaches to the supplementation and broodstock programs.