Partner with Commercial and Recreational Stakeholders
to Collect Data on the Marine Habitats
Utilized by Pacific Salmon

Current Status of Accomplishment or Milestone: Collaborative work with commercial and recreational salmon fishermen is ongoing, and work with personnel at a sport-fishery enhancement facility has been completed.

Background: Our partnerships form the basis of an effort to tag salmonids with instruments that record the time-specific temperatures and depths experienced by the fish. We are currently chartering commercial salmon trollers and sport-charter vessels to catch and tag Chinook salmon in the coastal waters of California. These charters are facilitated through a contract with the Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR, the research and education arm of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermens Associations), and start-up funds for this work were obtained through a Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant. Funds to continue the research have been obtained through NMFS support of studies on essential fish habitat (EFH). During February 2003, we collaborated with personnel at the Rowdy Creek Fish Hatchery (a sport-enhancement facility) to tag steelhead smolts. These smolts were released into the Smith River, California.

Purpose of Activity/Goal of Project: Partner with stakeholders to identify and describe EFH for salmon off the coasts of California and Oregon by recording information on the oceanographic conditions actually experienced by these fish.

Description of Accomplishment and Significant Results: As of 29 August 2003 and as part of our collaboration with the IFR, we have logged 10 days at sea on 4 chartered vessels (3 commercial salmon trollers and 1 sport charter vessel) from 2 ports in northern California (Ft. Bragg and Half Moon Bay). We have deployed 81 archival tags on Chinook salmon as a result of this effort, and 1 of these fish has been recaptured. Our collaboration with the IFR has been advertised on the Internet, and stakeholders can obtain background and contact information at www.ifrfish.org and www.fishresearchwest.org. We have also developed a Live Access Server (LAS) to host data that are downloaded from recaptured tags. This site is almost ready for public use, and stakeholders will be able to view and download the data that are collected as part of our collaborative research ( check http://www.pfeg.noaa.gov/whats_new.html ). This website will be important for providing stakeholders with a transparent method of archiving and accessing the products developed from our collaborative work. We tagged over 150 steelhead smolts during our collaborative work with personnel from the Rowdy Creek Fish Hatchery.

Problems: We have had difficulty attracting additional commercial fishermen to participate in the charter arrangement. We intended to start chartering vessels during May 2003, but we were not able to make arrangements with fishermen interested in our collaborative effort until late June 2003. Our contract with IFR provides enough funds to cover approximately 30 days at sea, but, given our difficulty with identifying willing participants, it is possible that the salmon fishing season will end before we have been able to use all of the available funds.

Key Contact: George Watters (831-648-0623, gwatters@pfeg.noaa.gov)