"ANADROMOUS FISH: Statistical Facts" is included in this document regarding the 1984-85 steelhead runs. It was prepared this past February in response to Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission statements concerning the 1984-85 steelhead run. The information is still pertinent and the projections are close to expections. A final accounting will be made later this spring when all hatchery runs have returned and final Idaho harvest figures are in.

The only new development is a recent charge by Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission against the Idaho Department of Fish and Game of mismanagement and cover-up concerning a disease problem with hatchery smolts released into the Salmon River. These charges are refuted in the following information.

Jerry M. Conley

Director

Idaho Department of Fish & Game

The Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), has attributed the lack of steelhead in the 1984-85 Salmon River run to an outbreak of IHN disease in smolts from the Niagara Springs Hatchery that were subsequently released from Pahsimeroi Hatchery on the Salmon River in 1983. Essentially zero return of those fish to the Salmon River is alleged.

The CRITFC claim that the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) is attempting to "cover up" the disease outbreak at Niagara Springs Hatchery is hard to understand when, to establish this claim, it is quoting published reports prepared by IDFG and sent by IDFG to CRITFC and to more than 100 other fishery-related entities over the past five months.

The CRITFC is also in error when stating IDFG did not disinfect its facilities after the IHN episode. This was done. IDFG follows all standard, applicable disease control methods.

The IDFG thoroughly investigated the possibility that poor survival from the 1983 smolt release at Pahsimeroi Hatchery might be responsible for low 1984-85 returns into the Salmon River when the low return first became apparent in October of 1984.

For the following reasons, the conclusions from this investigation did not at that time and do not at this time change the IDFG position that the 1984 Columbia River gillnet fishery had a drastic adverse impact on the 1984-85 steelhead fishery in the Salmon River.

1. IHN is a disease that primarily impacts small fish fry and, in Idaho hatcheries, normally runs its course by October. This ocurred at Niagara Springs Hatchery in 1982. Surviving Niagara Springs Hatchery smolts released from Pahsimeroi Hatchery in April of 1983 were not clinically diseased and were recorded as in good to excellent health.

2. Smolts from Niagara Springs Hatchery also suffered a serious outbreak of IHN in 1982, but these smolts, after release, produced the bulk of the record 1983-84 run into the Salmon River; fish that were obviously not doomed.

3. Only 29% of the total Salmon River A-run hatchery smolts in 1983 were exposed to high levels of IHN prior to release.

4.

The CRITFC quotes from a brand-mark study that indicates only 1.3 percent of the 1983 release of smolts from Pahsimeroi Hatchery reached Lower Granite Dam on their downstream migration. From this study it concludes that the 1983 Pahsimeroi Hatchery release had essentially zero survival.

This is fallacious because:

a)

b)

c)

The report clearly questions the accuracy of using freeze brand marks on juvenile steelhead from warmwater hatcheries such as Niagara Springs based on poor mark retention. Poor mark retention will cause a drastic underestimate of survival;

The studies are not designed to provide absolute numbers of smolts surviving but only comparative year-to-year migration rates;

An identical study in 1984 indicated even lower survival of Salmon River smolts to Lower Granite Dam than in 1983. There were no apparent disease problems or any other problems with these smolts. Again, poor mark retention is the suspected problem with the study results.

5. A-run steelhead, those bound for the Salmon River, are generally composed of primarily one-ocean fish (fish that spend one year in the ocean before returning), but the Pahsimeroi Hatchery run has averaged 51% two-ocean fish over the past six years (a 50/50 ratio is the IDFG goal). Using this ratio, an estimated 24,000 two-ocean hatchery fish from the 1982 smolt release were expected into the Salmon River during the 1984-85 run. Based on the best estimate to date, only 6,000 actually reached the Salmon River in 1984-85.

6.

a

Even if the invalid assumption is made that the 1983 release suffered total mortality, there should still have been significant run into the Salmon River of 1982-released two-ocean fish.

The total hatchery A-run over Bonneville Dam in 1984 was composed of 60% two-ocean fish. Any claim cannot be supported that, for some reason or other, essentially none of the 1982 A-run smolt release from Pahsimeroi Hatchery returned as two-ocean fish while all the other 1982 A-run hatchery smolts from the upper Columbia River Basin returned as primarily two-ocean fish.

7. Each year the Salmon River steelhead run is composed of four separate components: wild, one-ocean fish; wild, two-ocean fish; hatchery-produced, one-ocean fish; and hatchery-produced, two-ocean fish. If failure of returning Pahsimeroi Hatchery one-ocean fish due to IHN is the cause of the poor 1984-85 Salmon River run, as maintained by CRITFC, then why did the other components of the 1984-85 run also return at a reduced rate when these other components were obviously not affected by IHN.

Despite the record run at Bonneville Dam, the middle Columbia River steelhead run, like the Salmon River run, was also depressed. There were no disease problems with these A-run fish.

The Columbia River net fishery is clearly implicated as the cause of both declines.

8. Finally, to date almost 3,000 of the 1983 smolts that CRITFC claims died of IHN have returned as adults to the Salmon River in More of these fish should return in 1985-86.

1984-85.

In summary, IDFG is not aware of any valid arguments that show the poor 1984-85 steelhead run into the Salmon River was not caused by the Columbia River Indian gillnet fishery. The IDFG feels that reasonable management measures in the Columbia River could have prevented this situation and provided adequate steelhead to both the Indian fishery and the Salmon River. Such measures were urged by IDFG, but

unfortunately, those measures were not implemented.

The IDFG is more than willing to join in a cooperative effort to resolve the Columbia River steelhead fishery problems to the benefit of all parties involved. It is very difficult, however, to resolve problems in the fishery if one party refuses to acknowledge problems exist.