A study to evaluate the role of changing ocean conditions on growth and survival of juvenile salmon from the Columbia River basin as they enter the Columbia River plume and Pacific Northwest coastal habitats. Adult returns vary dramatically (over 10 fold) as a result of changing (good or bad) ocean conditions juveniles experience. Evaluating the benefit of restoration efforts in the Columbia River to restore endangered salmon populations needs to consider ocean conditions as a contributing factor to recovery. This is a large collaborative project with contributions from NWFSC, Oregon State University, and Oregon Health and Science University. The work focuses on three objectives: 1) Determining the distribution, growth, and condition of juvenile Columbia River Chinook and coho salmon in the plume and their ocean environments with associated physical and biological features, and effects on salmon survival via regular spring and summer surveys. 2) Using additional focused surveys to obtain critical pieces of information on predator impacts, specific food resources, biological condition, and means by which juvenile salmon exit the Columbia River estuary. 3) Synthesizing the early ocean ecology of juvenile Columbia River Chinook and coho salmon, test mechanisms that control salmonid growth and survival, and produce ecological indices that forecast salmonid survival. This project provides critical information on marine survival to the Columbia River salmonid management community (hydrosystem, harvest, hatchery, and habitat management) provides environmental indicators useful for forecasting salmon returns, and provides a greater understanding of ecological controls on salmon populations. This is a long-term monitoring and research project initiated in 1998. Species, abundance, and distribution of birds during salmon surveys.

In nearshore marine areas, critical habitat includes areas contiguous with the shoreline from the line of extreme high water out to a depth no greater than 30 meters relative to mean lower low water.See the final rule (70 FR 52630) for descriptions of areas excluded from this critical habitat designation. Military areas ineligible for designation (qualifying Integrated Natural Resource Management Plan) were not clipped out of the data. Excluded military areas (due to national security impacts) and Indian lands were not clipped out of the data.

In nearshore marine areas, critical habitat includes areas contiguous with the shoreline from the line of extreme high water out to a depth no greater than 30 meters relative to mean lower low water.See the final rule (70 FR 52630) for descriptions of areas excluded from this critical habitat designation. Excluded Dept of Defense (DOD) lands and Indian lands were not clipped out of the data.

In nearshore marine areas, critical habitat includes areas contiguous with the shoreline from the line of extreme high water out to a depth no greater than 30 meters relative to mean lower low water.See the final rule (70 FR 52630) for descriptions of areas excluded from this critical habitat designation. Excluded Dept of Defense (DOD) lands and Indian lands were not clipped out of the data.

The following waterways, bottom and water of the waterways and adjacent riparian zones: The Sacramento River from Keswick Dam, Shasta County (River Mile 302) to Chipps Island (River Mile 0) at the westward margin of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, all waters from Chipps Island westward to Carquinez Bridge, including Honker Bay, Grizzly Bay, Suisun Bay, and Carquinez Strait, all waters of San Pablo Bay westward of the Carquinez Bridge, and all waters of San Francisco Bay (north of the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge) from San Pablo Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge.Adjacent riparian zones are those areas above a streambank that provide cover and shade to the nearshore aquatic areas. This designation does not include any estuarine sloughs.

The Fisheries Ecology Division of NOAA’s SWFSC conducted annual surveys of salmon and their ocean habitat in the coastal waters of northern California and southern Oregon from 1998-2016. We used a surface trawl to collect juvenile and subadult salmonids, including several ESA-listed populations of Chinook and coho salmon and steelhead. We also quantified other coastal pelagic fish and invertebrates that co-occur with salmon, and we measured spatially matched biological and physical oceanographic variables. Juvenile salmon were frozen at sea and transported back to shore for further analysis. Scales, DNA, otoliths, stomach contents, blood plasma, and implanted tags (if present) were retained. The majority of older salmon and bycatch species were released alive at sea. Additional data recorded during our survey included seabird counts, plankton samples, echosounder readings, and CTD profiles of temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, transmissivity, and PAR.

Throughout the Pacific Northwest, stream habitat degradation has been cited as a factor contributing to the decline and ESA listing of of Pacific Salmon. Thus, stream habitat restoration is a major component of recovery plans as a method to increase salmon population productivity. Over 10 years after the majority of salmon listings we now have many datasets available to evaluate salmon habitat restoration placement, including our restoration projects database (Pacific Northwest Salmon Habitat Project Database), habitat assessments, salmon recovery plans, and spatial habitat mapping. By creating data dictionaries and metrics to standardize and analyze currently available datasets (e.g., restoration data, recovery plans, monitoring data, population abundance data) evaluations can be made to determine whether the right types of habitat actions are going in where they are most valuable. Further, a quantitative framework can be developed to link habitat conditions to fish population condition through stream restoration actions. This information can them be provided to local groups and agencies involved in salmon recovery to help inform the adaptive management process. Pacific Northwest Salmon Habitat Project Oracle Database.

FY20 will mark the 23nd year of sampling, making the Juvenile Salmon and Ocean Ecosystem Survey (JSOES) the longest running salmon survey on the west coast. JSOES has clearly demonstrated correlations between ocean conditions and the distribution, abundance, and survival of juvenile Columbia River (CR) salmon in the Northern California Current (NCC) nearshore ecosystem. For example, our ocean indicators provide managers from the federal and state governments, tribes, and other agencies/groups the ability to forecast adult returns one to two years in advance for coho and spring/summer Chinook salmon. We continue to show the importance of evaluating ocean conditions to support management decisions and to provide context for efforts by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC) and BPA to restore and enhance salmon production. The primary goal of our work is to develop a mechanistic understanding of how trophic dynamics and conditions in the ocean and CR plume affect survival of juvenile salmonids. This knowledge will allow us to improve forecasts in a quantitative rather than qualitative manner, and decouple the effects of mitigation efforts in the freshwater environment from the effects of a changing ocean environment. These improved forecasts will lead to well-informed recommendations for an ecosystem approach to management strategies based on the full suite of river, plume, and ocean environments. Nekton and juvenile salmon collections from surface trawl.

This project extends and advances existing ocean distribution and size models for Chinook Salmon, a major prey of Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) and target of important fisheries, to provide ocean distribution estimates for multiple run-types (fall, summer, and spring Chinook) arising from rivers from California to Alaska by season and under variable oceanic conditions. It leverages very large tag-recapture databases that have been developed for Chinook Salmon over the past 50 years – hundreds of millions of fish tagged and millions recovered – and links these recoveries to a range of fisheries in which Chinook are targeted or captured as bycatch. It integrates data coast-wide, from Alaska to California, and over more than 30 years (1978-2015), to provide a first synthetic, quantitative description of Chinook distribution that can be used to understand the total Chinook prey field available to SRKW, fishers, and other predators in different seasons and under alternate ocean states. In addition, this projects examines long-term trends in Chinook salmon size and their biological implications. Chinook populations have shown pronounced trends toward smaller and younger fish returning to spawn, and these trends have accelerated in the last 15 years. This erosion of the age-size structure and life-history diversity may negatively affect population productivity via reductions in reproductive potential, and may compromise the long-term viability of populations and jeopardize the sustainability of Chinook salmon fisheries. Consequently, long-term shifts in life-history characteristics, which are likely caused by changing ecological conditions in the ocean, might need to be accounted for when estimating reference points for fishery management. This work supports ongoing efforts to recover SRKW populations, informs the SRKW critical habitat designation process and recovery plans, feeds into the PFMC SRKW ad hoc work group, and is directly in line with the NMFS Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management Road Map and Policy as well as the National Climate Science Strategy.

The Strait of Juan de Fuca Intensively Monitored Watershed (IMW) began in 2004 to test the watershed-scale response of steelhead and coho salmon to watershed restoration. The Strait IMW includes two treatment watersheds (East Twin River and Deep Creek) and one control watershed (West Twin River). Restoration treatments included LWD placement, road and culvert removal, off-channel habitat creation, and riparian planting. Monitoring of physical habitat as well as coho and steelhead parr densities began in 2004 using the EPA’s EMAP site selection and sampling protocols. Smolt and adult monitoring predates the IMW program and began as early as 1998 in some watersheds. Preliminary results suggest an increase in pool habitat and small increases in steelhead adults and smolts in East Twin River, as well as adult coho in Deep Creek. PIT tagging has revealed a large outmigration of age-0 coho in the fall that contributes to the adult return, stream swapping by juveniles, and varying return times for coho adults. Current research has answered a portion of our original questions and has raised new ones. Restoration treatments were completed fairly recently or are still in progress. As habitat typically does not respond immediately to treatment, additional years of monitoring are needed to determine watershed-scale fish response. Moving forward, analysis of otoliths to validate PIT tag data and new restoration methods such as carcass or nutrient enhancement may be merited. PIT tagging and habitat data. Includes fish weight, length, location, and PIT tag number. Habitat data includes wood measurements and stream surveys.