The session goals are to 1) gain appreciation for complexity of estimating salmon population parameters and where data limits are, 2) discuss relevant metrics to use for quantifying salmon status and linking to habitat features, and 3) estimate spawner returns, juvenile out-migrants, and productivity of salmon throughout the life cycle.

Lead Speakers:

Kit Rawson (Tulalip Tribe)

Kit Rawson (krawson@tulalip.nsn.us) has been a fishery management biologist in the Tulalip Tribes Fisheries Department (www.tulalip.nsn.us) for 15 years. Before that he was a biometrician with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s FRED Division (now defunct). He holds an MS degree in biomathematics from the University of Washington and a BS in biological sciences from the University of Arizona, where he prepared for a career as a salmon biologist by studying desert plant ecology and computing correlations between dendrochronological time series and climate variables at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring research.

Kit is a member of the Puget Sound Technical Recovery Team, the Stillaguamish and Snohomish watershed technical committees, the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee, and a myriad of regional comanager committees and workgroups involved with harvest management, hatchery production, and salmon recovery planning. He served on the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee from 1991-1998.

He is an intermediate-level home brewer, a slow but persistent bicyclist, and an avid baseball fan.

Powerpoint

Correigh Greene (NMFS)

Correigh Greene (correigh.greene@noaa.gov) studies salmon population dynamics as a postdoctoral research associate at NMFS &Mac226; Northwest Fisheries Science Center. He holds a PhD in Animal Behavior from UC Davis, where he studied another scaled vertebrate (western fence lizards). His interest in the life history, behavior, and population biology of Pacific salmon began eight years ago while he pursued an MS degree in Wildlife Ecology from University of Michigan (studying great gray owls). Aside from salmon biology, Correigh enjoys playing guitar and cross country skiing.

Powerpoint

1) There seems to be a basic quandary in that no single metric, or set of metrics, can adequately describe salmon population status across the entire range of habitats/management areas. Yet managers and the public require some kind of comparable index, usually an annual population estimate, before they will consider courses of action, funding, and where to target their efforts. How do you think this "Catch-22" should be addressed? Are some indices of a salmon populations relative health more applicable over larger geographic areas and/or across salmon species than are others?

2) Over what timeframe should we measure recovery? It seems there are several processes going on at different time scales, with various degrees of interaction depending on the state of each variable. Is it possible to separate the effect of dominant factors, which may be occurring at longer scales (I'm thinking of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) from those occurring on say, an annual cycle?

3) How accurately do we need to estimate salmon populations to effectively manage them? How does one assess the relative accuracy and potential sources of error in the commonly-used estimation techniques?

4) Do you think a more adaptive regional management style, allowing for evaluation and refinement of management practices on a smaller scale, would be more effective than a "top-down" approach. Or would such an approach be too difficult to gauge and maintain consistency across ESU's?