Yakama Nation Lower Yakima River Anadromous Species Monitoring

The purpose of this project is a) To add capacity for assessing fish passage, survival, rearing areas for Yakima Basin Salmon and Steelhead in the lower 100 miles of the Yakima River b) Provide a 1 year term monitoring solution for adult salmonids through the lower Yakima River. Adding both juvenile and adult monitoring capabilities in the lower Yakima River will greatly assist YNs efforts for monitoring and assessing anadromous species. This will be a full time fisheries biologist that will provide technical expertise for development of monitoring sites, data plans, and maintenance of monitoring arrays for PIT, acoustic, and radio tagged anadromous fish. The position will also assist with development and implementation of using future and current fish assessment technologies (i.e. sensor fish) for assessing and developing anadromous fish survival projects. PCSRF Priority Intended to Achieve: This project will specifically address Priority (2) Project that address factors limiting the productivity of Pacific anadromous salmonids listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), or those populations necessary for the exercise of tribal treaty fishing rights or native subsistence fishing may include efforts to restore or maintain such populations while limiting factors are being addressed.



Worksite #1 Proposed Work: Lower Yakima River

The intent of the monitoring position is to provide a full-time employee that will develop monitoring methods, utilize/maintain equipment, and provide anadromous fish passage and stream use data to develop spatial and temporal reporting for anadromous fish in the lower 100 miles of the Yakima River. The position will be a full time fisheries biologist that will report to YN fish managers the passage timing and counts of tagged fish in the lower Yakima River. The position will provide data and reports to assist in developing survival estimates and travel times for PIT, acoustic, and radio tagged smolts that have been observed or tagged at Prosser Dam Chandler Juvenile Facility. Smolt survival to the Lower Yakima River and McNary Dam will also be assessed from lower river array detections. Travel times to the lower river site will also provide guidance of planned smolt outmigration prescribed flows. The arrays will also improve detection efficiencies for any upstream PIT tag arrays. A lower Yakima River Instream PIT-Tag array will also be used for estimating entry-timing, behavior, and survival for adults migrating upstream through the lower Yakima River. This is critical for understanding temperature and predation effects on adult salmonids in summer months.

The Yakama Nation has worked to enhance and reintroduce Salmon and Steelhead populations in the Yakima River Basin. Lower Yakima River fish passage has been found to be a limiting factor in the efforts to achieve self-sustaining harvestable salmon and steelhead populations. Lower Yakima River flows, water quality, and infrastructure sites have been identified as a significant source of mortality for these populations. Current and past Yakima River fisheries studies have shown large numbers of juvenile salmon are entrained into infrastructures for water diversions and experience high rates of mortalities. Monitoring of salmon and steelhead has led to discoveries of mortality hotpots and flows that are inadequate in volume for fish passage. Current work by Yakama Nation is leading the way to improve infrastructure and flows for fish passage a critical effort in this work is the need to evaluate fish passage by monitoring fisheries stocks. This monitoring is critical to identify the causes of high juvenile salmonid mortalities and adult salmonid passage bottlenecks. Pre and post monitoring is critical for evaluation of changes to infrastructure and prescribed flows to inform fish managers on steps to be taken for having healthier and harvestable salmon and steelhead in the Yakima Basin. This monitoring funding request will address the help the needed for further monitoring of Sockeye, Chinook, Coho salmon, and Steelhead of the Yakima Basin.