FY 2021 Upper Skagit Tribal Adult Chinook Population Monitoring

The project supports three separate approaches to monitoring Skagit Chinook abundance, run timing, escapement, and impacts to Chinook stocks in different terminal fisheries. These efforts are intended to support the data collection needed to effectively manage fisheries to achieve Endangered Species Act (ESA) recovery goals. The three separate actions include terminal test fisheries, spawning ground surveys and tribal fishery catch sampling (biological sampling, mark status sampling including CWT analysis). Test fisheries are conducted in the Skagit River, at one location once per week from June to end of July. Standardizing test fishery catch effort by area, time, and gear provide an effective method for monitoring Chinook recovery implementation. Spawner surveys, which consist of redd and carcass counts, are conducted in the Skagit River and tributaries to monitor escapement for the three summer and fall stocks. These surveys are conducted from September through November and provide information for estimating escapement, indicator stock production, and population age structure. The third component this program supports is catch sampling of Upper Skagit Indian Tribe (USIT) fisheries. USIT fisheries are monitored and sampled from May through November when Chinook interceptions are most likely to occur. These funds support a portion of one fisheries biologist and one field coordinator.

Monitoring actions arise from the need to evaluate the success of restoration, protection, hatchery and harvest actions in reaching recovery goals. USIT’s programmatic monitoring program focuses on biological monitoring of returning adults at the basin scale. This project supports three separate monitoring components, including test fisheries in the lower river, catch monitoring and sampling of all terminal fisheries, and spawning ground surveys. The Skagit Chinook Recovery Plan, Chapter 16 Monitoring Actions identifies these monitoring components and describes how data are used for testing conditions and recovery assumptions. The data collected in these efforts are shared with Skagit River co-managers to monitor fundamental population metrics, for example, but not limited to: development of six independent population escapement estimates, timing and distribution of run, age composition data, hatchery/wild and coded wire tag (CWT) group composition of the run, population fitness, percent of juvenile life history strategy in adults, spawner-recruit analysis, encounter rates, catch and harvest distribution between fisheries, and total exploitation rates. Age and CWT information is needed annually to monitor fishery management objectives. Without these funds this critical information would lag years behind and would not be available to shape international, national, and terminal fisheries on an annual return year basis.