Upper Skagit Indian Tribe’s FY 2023 Adult Chinook Population Monitoring.

The project supports three approaches to monitoring Skagit Chinook abundance, run timing, escapement, and impacts to Chinook stocks in 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, 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 August through November and provide information for estimating escapement, indicator stock production, and population age structure. Monitoring and catch sampling of Upper Skagit Indian Tribe (USIT) fisheries occurs from May through November when Chinook interceptions are most likely to occur. Funds support a portion of one fisheries biologist and one field coordinator.

This project supports three separate monitoring components, including test fisheries in the lower river, catch monitoring and sampling of all terminal USIT fisheries, and spawning ground surveys.