Artificial Production/Supplementation III

The Fishery Science Department of CRITFC continued its programmatic role to provide a centralized source of expertise on artificial production, genetics and population monitoring that supported research and monitoring within tribal fisheries programs. They continued to support tribal fishery interests and the use of supplementation as a recovery tool in regional fishery review processes. These processes included input to NOAA Fisheries on the formulation of ESA-related policies on listing of hatchery-reared fish and on the salmon stock listing revisions rule, and on the Mitchell Act Hatchery EIS, and to the NPCC on the drafting of the Columbia River Basin Research Plan. There were also several legal processes involved to which the Fishery Science Department provided vital input, including U.S. v. Oregon, and litigation associated with the ESA listing/delisting, including review of the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion (FCRPS BiOp), which included numerous Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (RPA) actions involving use of hatchery-propagated fish and related monitoring activities, etc.

This project provides support to tribal fisheries programs whose objectives include rebuilding the populations of Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, coho salmon O. kisutch, sockeye salmon O. nerka and steelhead rainbow trout O. mykiss in the mid- and upper-Columbia River Basin.