Washington State Wild Steelhead Status

Washington State Steelhead Status

Washington Steelhead Management Plan

“In 2004, the Director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife challenged the agency to develop a scientific foundation for a Statewide Steelhead Management Plan (SSMP). The scientific foundation for the SSMP comes from the Department’s steelhead science paper “Oncorhynchus mykiss: Assessment of Washington State’s Anadromous Populations and Programs” (Draft February 2, 2008), which provided several findings and recommendations to rebuild Washington’s wild stocks. The findings and recommendations represent the underpinnings of the Statewide Steelhead Management Plan.

“The steelhead management plan is necessary because in spite of seventy years of conservation efforts directed at the state’s steelhead stocks, many of these stocks are at a fraction of their historic numbers. Five of the seven distinct population segments that exist in Washington are currently federally listed under the Endangered Species Act.”

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Scott, James, B. and William T. Gill. 2008. Oncorhynchus mykiss: Assessment of Washington State’s Steelhead Populations and Programs Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Olympia, Washington

Abundance and Productivity

Abundance and productivity are two of the four VSP characteristics that determine the health of natural populations and opportunities for sustainable fishing opportunities.  Productive, accessible habitat is essential for the long-term viability and productivity of steelhead populations.

Findings and Recommendations:

•  The status of steelhead populations varies substantially across Washington.  Over 90% of the populations in the Olympic Peninsula region and over 60% in the Southwest Washington region were rated as “Healthy”.  However, less than 20% of the steelhead populations were rated as “Healthy” in the five remaining regions of Washington.  Yet, recent data does suggest some reason for optimism.  Possibly due to improved marine conditions, the average escapement for steelhead populations throughout Washington increased by 48% in the years 1999 through 2006 relative to the prior 5 years.  (Chapter 8)

•  Population viability analysis identified thirteen populations of steelhead with the potential for substantive conservation concerns.  The population viability analysis (PVA) conducted for this paper can be used as a tool to filter data and identify populations with a potential conservation concern.  However, additional information is needed to fully assess the risk of extirpation.  PVA can be misleading, particularly  where population structure is uncertain or, as in the case with this analysis, the potential contribution of rainbow trout to population performance was not considered.  (Chapter 8)

Recommendation.  Conduct Status Assessments.  Reassess the status of all populations in Washington on a 4 to 8 year cycle to assure that opportunities for early action are not missed.  Use population viability analysis (PVA) to filter spawner abundance data and, for populations identified to have a potential conservation concern, broaden the analysis to evaluate the contribution of rainbow trout to population viability, the previous performance of the population, and factors affecting population status.  (Chapter 8)

Recommendation.  Formalize Assessment of At-Risk Populations.  Annually  monitor and review the status of populations at risk, identify limiting factors, and assess the effectiveness of management actions.  Recommend and implement new programs to address limiting factors, and potentially initiate

“rescue programs” like kelt reconditioning, natural stream channel rearing, or hatchery supplementation to conserve natural populations until limiting factors are addressed.  (Chapter 8)

•  The inability to monitor the escapement of populations introduces significant uncertainty and risk into the management of steelhead in Washington.  The status of 47% of the steelhead populations could not be rated because of the lack of a time series of escapement or other abundance data.  (Chapter 8)

Recommendation.  Improve Escapement Monitoring.  Prioritize monitoring, solicit funding, develop alternative estimation methods and sample designs, and enlist the assistance of other organizations to increase the percentage of populations assessed on a regular basis.  (Chapter 8)

Historic Abundance    Current Abundance    Average Decline

Grays Harbor (8 Rivers)

5,424                       17,993                  68%

Columbia River Mouth (6 Rivers)

13,706                       2,326                 56%

Southwest Washington (14 Rivers)    62%

Lower Columbia River Winter Steelhead (13 Rivers)

26,228                        5,218                73%

Lower Columbia Summer Steelhead (4 Rivers)

5,016                          2,412                 53%

LCR Winter and Summer (17 Rivers)  69%

Mid-Columbia Steelhead (6 Rivers)

100,409                      4,075                   87%

Upper Columbia Steelhead (4 Rivers)

18,838                           553                   98%   

Snake River Steelhead (4 Rivers)

 28,713                        1,910                    84%

Puget Sound

No data

Olympic Peninsula

No data

Bill McMillan’s assessment of these tables

            The “pre-settlement” steelhead numbers indicated in the 2008 WDFW estimates are clear indications of lack of research into available fishery history with a resulting example of what has been termed the shifting baseline syndrome.    As an example, in 1895 the Grays Harbor weight of steelhead canned was 395,479 pounds which at 8 pounds per winter steelhead (in the ballpark of what the average steelhead was at that time as indicated in the earliest literature) would represent 49,435 steelhead harvested alone.  If harvest was 50% of run-size it would mean a run-size of 100,000 steelhead to the Grays Harbor system of streams.  If harvest was 70% of run-size it would be 70,621 steelhead.  This does not take into account the thousands of steelhead that were used for subsistence, fertilizer, and to feed livestock by the settlers of the region which in Puget Sound was estimated in an 1895 U.S. Fish Commission report to be equal to all the commercial steelhead catch that year on the Stillaguamish River.  This was further confirmed as likely the case from other historic sources.  It also does not include the tribal subsistence fisheries at that time.  From the historic catch data of 1895 the probable realistic range of numbers of steelhead returning to the Grays Harbor system would have been 140,000-200,000 steelhead.

            The WDFW pre-settlement estimated run-size for the Grays Harbor systems is 17,993 steelhead, or 36% of what the reported commercial catch alone was in 1895.  WDFW indicates that the present wild steelhead run-size of the Grays Harbor systems is 5,424 steelhead and represents 68% loss of that at the pre-settlement period.  In fact, that estimate of 5,424 steelhead is 2.7-3.9% of what the wild steelhead run-size range more likely was at the time of 1895 at Grays Harbor, or 96.1-97.3% loss of former wild steelhead numbers.  This is consistent with the steelhead losses found by Gayeski et al. 2011 for the Nooksack, Skagit, Stillaguamish, Snohomish, and remainder of Puget Sound streams that have occurred since 1895. 

            As another example, in the winter of 1953-54 the Queets River of the Olympic Peninsula had a reported tribal catch alone of 13,182 wild winter-run steelhead.  In 1923 a cannery was in operation on the Queets River with 72,000 pounds of canned steelhead packed that would have represented 240,000 pounds of live steelhead if there was 70% wastage as can potentially occur.  Queets steelhead were found to average 9.8 pounds in the tribal catch of the 1930s and 1940s, somewhat larger average than typical for Puget Sound.  The 1923 cannery pack would have represented 24,490 wild steelhead.  If the cannery pack was 50% of the run-size some 48,980 steelhead returned to the Queets that year.  This does not include tribal subsistence catch or that of settlers in the area and is therefore very conservative.

            Wind River in the USFWS surveys of the Columbia River basin during the 1930s was estimated to have sufficient available gravel for about 15,000 spawning salmon based on the size of the average Chinook salmon redd (larger than that for steelhead).  At that time the only fish that had access to the majority of Wind River basin that is above Shepard Falls was summer-run steelhead.  That estimate of Wind River productivity based on available spawning gravel did not include Trout Creek basin now known to be one of the major producers of steelhead.  Therefore the 1930s estimate was conservative.  In 1951 it was estimated that Wind River had an escapement of 2,500 wild summer-run steelhead after a sport harvest of 7,500 pounds, or about 1,000 steelhead for a total of 3,500.  By 1951 Wind River was already in great steelhead decline, and the 1951 return had yet to benefit significantly from removal of the Carson Lumber Company mill dam near today’s Cannavina Road that had denied upstream passage since at least the 1930s to the majority of the best mainstem Wind River spawning habitat.  How WDFW came up with a pre-settlement run-size figure of 2,404 wild summer-run steelhead to Wind River is difficult to determine. 

            Regarding the Eastside streams the estimates are not as far off as for the Westside.  Nevertheless, they have commonly been low-balled.  As one example, Idaho’s Clearwater River as late as 1960 had an escapement of 45,000 wild summer-run steelhead past Lewiston Dam.  This was after the impacts of the commercial fishery in the lower Columbia, Columbia River sport fisheries, and the Snake River sport fishery.  It was long ago noticed in 1895 and 1896 U.S. Fish Commission reports that salmon and steelhead returns to the Columbia and Snake basins had collapsed since 1883 and that the last large returns were in 1878.  1960 was long after these known collapses.   Based on the 1960 steelhead numbers that remained, 19^th century Clearwater run-sizes of wild steelhead in the 200,000 range are realistic.  The Clearwater basin provides a low end measure of what the Yakima basin may have once provided.  Nevertheless, estimates based more on available spawning gravel as one relatively easy habitat measure of productivity may in the future provide estimates of more scientific justification – both historically and at present. 

            These are just a few examples of how WDFW and other Northwest fishery managers have low-balled wild steelhead and salmon productivity prior to habitat alterations and subsequent hatchery impacts.  This is precisely what Daniel Pauly came to term the “shifting baseline syndrome” in 1995 as a worldwide fishery phenomenon that denies the ability to prevent a continuous decline in both salt and fresh water fish populations and similarly prevents recovery as we progressively downgrade fish productivity by using faulty historic baselines.

HATCHERY STEELHEAD IMPACT WILD STEELHEAD

In a recent conversation with an executive of the ODFW fish division about releasing hatchery steelhead in the Sandy River, Oregon, the assertion was made that these hatchery fish had no impact on wild steelhead.  That is a statement of fact, so I asked for the supporting data.  After a bit of dithering, he admitted that this conclusion was indeed only an assumption. 

Apparently, biologists that hold important political positions within an agency or those that have an agenda regardless of their pecking order within the agency, feel comfortable making factual statements even though they have no facts to back them up.  Typically, the public has been conditioned to accept a strongly stated assertion at face value.  After all, why would they lie?  The public trust is easily violated by agenda driven agency functionaries. 

Years of scientific studies costing thousands of dollars have shown that the release of hatchery steelhead has an impact on the health, abundance, and status of wild steelhead in our rivers.  The public pays for these studies and should expect that what is learned would be applied to management decsions by government agencies, but there is no obligation for an agency or its personnel to use this information in their work.  

What are some of the facts about releasing hatchery steelhead in streams already occupied by wild steelhead? 

“Hatchery steelhead displaced wild O. mykiss in 79% of the contests observed between these groups. Our results indicate that the behavior of hatchery steelhead can pose risks to preexisting wild O. mykiss where the two interact.”

That is a startling fact discovered in 1999 by McMichael and others doing a study of hatchery and wild steelhead interactions on the Yakima River.  That fact was documented 12 years ago.  I wonder why it the ODFW biologist did not use it to at least question his assumption that releasing hatchery steelhead had no effect on wild steelhead in Oregon?  Maybe he did not know about this study and maybe since it was from a Yakima River study in the state of Washington, it somehow does not apply to Oregon rivers. 

What else did the scientists find out about hatchery steelhead impacts on wild steelhead in the Yakima River?

“Strategies to minimize undesirable risks associated with behavior of released hatchery steelhead should be addressed if protection and restoration of wild steelhead stocks is the management goal.”

That is interesting.  Maybe this ODFW biologist is not interested in the protection and restoration of wild steelhead in the Sandy River?  But I am sure he must be concerned for after all the wild steelhead are threatened with extinction and their recovery is his responsibility. His agency has even underscored that responsibility in the form of policy when in 2003 the ODFW commission adopted a rule that says protection of native fish is the primary goal of the agency.   Even Oregon state law directs the agency to prevent the serious depletion of native species.  That has been confirmed by the Oregon Department of Justice to mean that the department and the commission have an overriding obligation to prevent the depletion of native species.  I would be surprised if this legal direction did not also include agency biologists and executives. 

I was surprised by the comment of an ODFW biologist that had left the agency for another in state government.  When I asked him why he had left ODFW he simply replied: “I wanted to work for an agency where I did not get in trouble for following the rules.”

Reference

McMichael, Geoffrey A.; Todd N. Pearsons; Steven A. Leider. 1999. Behavioral interactions among hatchery-reared steelhead smolts and wild Oncorhynchus mykiss in natural streams. North American Journal of Fisheries Management. Vol. 19, Issue 4. pages 948-956.

Multiple Sources of Gene Flow into Wild Steelhead Populations

Molecular Biology 2011

Who are the missing parents? Grandparentage analysis identifies multiple sources of gene flow into a wild population

MARK R. CHRISTIE, MELANIE L. MARINE and MICHAEL S. BLOUIN

Department of Zoology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-2914, USA

Abstract

In order to increase the size of declining salmonid populations, supplementation programmes intentionally release fish raised in hatcheries into the wild. Because hatchery-born fish often have lower fitness than wild-born fish, estimating rates of gene flow from hatcheries into wild populations is essential for predicting the fitness cost to wild populations. Steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) have both freshwater resident and anadromous (ocean-going) life history forms, known as rainbow trout and steelhead, respectively. Juvenile hatchery steelhead that ‘residualize’ (become residents rather than go to sea as intended) provide a previously unmeasured route for gene flow from hatchery into wild populations. We apply a combination of parentage and grandparentage methods to a three-generation pedigree of steelhead from the Hood River, Oregon, to identify the missing parents of anadromous fish. For fish with only one anadromous parent, 83% were identified as having a resident father while 17% were identified as having a resident mother. Additionally, we documented that resident hatchery males produced more offspring with wild anadromous females than with hatchery anadromous females. One explanation is the high fitness cost associated with matings between two hatchery fish. After accounting for all of the possible matings involving steelhead, we find that only 1% of steelhead genes come from residualized hatchery fish, while 20% of steelhead genes come from wild residents. A further 23% of anadromous steelhead genes come from matings between two resident parents. If these matings mirror the proportion of matings between residualized hatchery fish and anadromous partners, then closer to 40% of all steelhead genes come from wild trout each generation. These results suggest that wild resident fish contribute substantially to endangered steelhead ‘populations’ and highlight the need for conservation and management efforts to fully account for interconnected Oncorhynchus mykiss life histories.

 http://nativefishsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/Christie-et-al-w-M-Blouin-ME-2011-steelhead-missing-parents.pdf

ASOTIN CREEK - POINTING THE WAY TO WILD STEELHEAD RECOVERY

By excluding hatchery fish a wild steelhead population will double its productivity, more than double the number of returning adults and double its adult recruits per spawner. It also means that there are more fish available for harvest. With a ten percent improvement in habitat these number increase even more. That is the prediction of a recent scientific evaluation of Asotin Creek in southeastern Washington, a tributary to the lower Snake River above eight mainstem Columbia and Snake river dams.

In 2009 the Hatchery Science Review Group (HSRG) made a recommendation to exclude hatchery steelhead in Asotin Creek to improve the productivity of wild summer steelhead. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has constructed a weir a few miles above the mouth of the creek with the Snake River and has collected data on adult and juvenile steelhead since 2005, and it represents one of the only intensive evaluations of a wild steelhead population in the Columbia River Basin.

Recovery of Columbia Basin salmon runs has long been claimed to be the world’s largest salmon recovery program and has spent over $9 billion to double the runs from 1992 to 2000. That effort, dependent primarily on releasing more hatchery fish, has failed. Artificial propagation promises to mitigate for damaged salmon habitat, but has failed to make up for the losses. The promise was made that hatcheries would increase salmonids available for harvest, but have failed. However, hatcheries have been successful in contributing to the depletion of wild salmonids throughout the basin.

The Asotin Creek evaluation points to a new direction: exclude hatchery fish form the natural spawning population. According to the HSRG analysis the productivity would increase from 1.3 adults recruits per spawner to 2.3; average abundance of wild spawners would increase from 354 fish to 817 fish, and the harvest contribution would increase from 38 fish to 179 fish.

This analysis is confirmed by other studies that show a decline in wild steelhead when hatchery fish are able to spawn naturally with wild fish:

In 2008 Araki et al. evaluated the impact of native brood steelhead hatchery program on Hood River wild steelhead, saying, “We show that genetic effects of domestication reduce subsequent reproductive capabilities by 40% per captive-reared generation when fish are moved to natural environments. These results suggest that even a few generations of domestication may have negative effects on natural reproduction in the wild.”

Michael Blouin of OSU also worked on Hood River steelhead study and said, “If anyone ever had any doubts about the genetic differences between hatchery and wild fish, the data are now pretty clear. The effect is so strong that it carries over into the first wild-born generation. Even if fish are born in the wild and survive to reproduce, those adults that had hatchery parents still produce substantially fewer surviving offspring than those with wild parents. That's pretty remarkable." Blouin added, “"What it means is that if you are trying to help a wild population recover then putting hatchery fish in there is probably not a good idea."

Mark Chilcote (ODFW) published a study in 2003, and concludes, “ Naturally spawning population comprised of equal numbers of hatchery and wild fish would produce 63% fewer recruits per spawner than one comprised entirely of wild fish. For natural populations, removal rather than addition of hatchery fish may be the most effective strategy to improve productivity and resilience.” He added, “a spawning population with 20% hatchery strays (regardless of the type of hatchery program and whether they are integrated or segregated) had the net survival rate (recruits per spawner) that was 20% less than a population comprised entirely of wild fish (0% hatchery strays). Likewise, a population with 40% hatchery strays had a population survival rate that was 40% lower than a population comprised entirely of wild fish.”

Steve Leider in his work on the Kalama River compared the survival of hatchery and wild steelhead and said, “ The mean percentage of offspring from naturally spawning hatchery steelhead decreased at successive life history stages, compared to wild steelhead, from a potential of 85-87% at the egg stage to 42% at the adult stage. Reproductive success of naturally spawning hatchery steelhead compared to wild steelhead decreases from 75-78% at the subyearling stage to 10.8-12.9% at the adult stage.”

Given this and many other sources of information on the impact of hatchery steelhead on wild steelhead the question has to be asked: Why do the recovery programs developed by the states and the NMFS always include hatchery fish as part of the fix for ESA-listed depleted wild salmonid populations?

The simple answer is that hatcheries mean federal dollars for state programs, so hatcheries have to be a central factor in salmonid recovery plans. It also means that because the fish managers are never held accountable to the scientific information they generate, they are free to ignore it and they do.

In a recent paper by Jim Lichatowich and Rick Williams in 2009, they confront this issue head on: “The management agencies must put learning and incorporation of science on the agenda, something which in our experience management agencies have been reluctant to do.”

WARM RIVERS INCREASES IMPACT OF HATCHERY FISH AND DISEASE PROBLEMS FOR WILD STEELHEAD

Warm Rivers and Disease

The El Nino year has brought some interesting variation in air and stream temperatures. As many of you know I have been collecting water temperature and steelhead spawning data in the Quileute River basin since 1997 (excluding the two years I left for school). This year, to no surprise, the streams (SolDuc and Calawah) are running warmer than any other January I have on record. Typically, streams run 38 - 42F in January, this year they are running 42 - 45F.

Because of the warm water temperatures the steelhead spawn timing is shifting this year. I have counted at least 50 steelhead redds over the past three weeks in the Sol Duc and Calawah Rivers. Interestingly, many of these redds are in the middle and lower sections of the rivers. If you remember the paper I published a few years ago, I found that steelhead spawned earlier in the upper river sections and later in the lower sections. There are fish spawning up high this year - the high water facilitated their migration. However, there are also many fish spawning in areas further downstream, which is unusual. I have already caught 4 female kelts, including 2 Snider Ck. hatchery fish and 2 wild fish. I wondered if WDFW and the Tribes were aware that this early spawning and trying to account for the activity by initiating redd surveys earlier than normal? It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the course of the season.

Because of the early spawning wild fish and the large Chambers Creek hatchery run, there is a lot of opportunity for interbreeding between wild and hatchery fish this year (and potentially other El Nino years). In fact, I am catching and seeing Chambers Creek males hanging out in sections of the SolDuc where I have never previously observed them. Right now there are still several Chambers Creek rip males in both of the aforementioned rivers. There are also numerous Snider Creek males. Given the IHN outbreak in the hatchery fish, surely transmission from adult to offspring is occurring via hatchery males fertilizing wild females. There is simply too many wilds spawning activity right now and too many hatchery males for that not to occur.

I imagine that the managers are aware of the typical modes of IHNV transmission. However, four days ago I caught a male Chambers Creek fish in the middle SolDuc. As I removed him from the water at least 20 leeches evacuated his gills. Another 10 or so slithered away after I beached him.

The leeches raised a question in my mind: Can they transmit IHNV? Guess what, leeches and copepods can carry IHNV and presumably transmit to wild fish. I have attached a nice paper that found very high infection levels in leeches, so high in fact that alost all of the leeches on the spawning grounds were infected. I am wondering if WDFW has considered this transmission pathway? I saw an email from Heather Bartlett and she rattled off the normal modes of transmission but did not mention leeches or copepods. Perhaps my observations and the attached paper will raise some questions.

Lastly, IHNV has a fairly narrow range of temps that it survives under (46 - 59F). As I previously mentioned, in your typical year water temps range from 38 - 42F during the time of overlap between Chambers Creek and wild steelhead. The cold water temps would limit survival and transmission of IHNV. This year though, with the El Nino, the water temps are around 46F and the intragravel temps are at least 46F, meaning that INHV survival and transmission is highly possible.

This could be the worst mix of conditions WDFW could ask for with their hatchery program. It is not a surprise though. IHNV outbreaks are nearly always the worst in good ocean years. Couple their abundance with very warm stream temps and I believe the potential for heightened transmission of INHV from hatchery to wild steelhead needs to be evaluated.

Mass transmissions are difficult to track and find in nature. I understand that. In this case though, it seems imperative to determine if transmission is occurring.

I hope you are finding this year to be as interesting, and potentially disappointing, as I am.

Sincerely,

John McMillan