For more information:
Gustavo Bisbal
Fisheries Research Coordinator
800-452-5161

With the Council's approval, which is expected in December, the Bonneville Power Administration will supply about half of the $1.3 million project cost in 2000.  It will be the fourth year of the effort to research and reduce the impact of the seabirds, which nest in the estuary in the spring and summer.

About 20,000 terns nested in the estuary this year, primarily on Rice Island, a disposal site for sand dredged from the bottom of the Columbia River shipping channel.  Terns prefer to lay their eggs on open sand, and Rice Island provides ideal habitat for the birds.  While researchers do not know precisely how many smolts the birds have consumed, in recent years terns are estimated to have eaten 10-30 percent of the 95 million smolts believed to be in the estuary.

Federal fish and wildlife agencies and university researchers are working to relocate the terns from Rice Island to East Sand Island about nine miles west, where there are fewer juvenile salmon and steelhead and greater concentrations of other fish for terns to eat, such as anchovies.  Specific activities planned for 2000 include:

• Preventing terns from nesting on Rice Island and adjacent sites.
• Attracting terns to nest on East Sand Island, where four acres of nesting habitat will be provided.  That is about half the amount provided this year on East Sand Island, but it should be enough for all of the terns that nested in the estuary this year, given that about 16,000 nested on Rice Island alone.
• Restoring Caspian tern nesting areas outside the estuary, including in Grays Harbor in 2000 and additional sites in south Puget Sound in future years.  Sites in Oregon also will be investigated. 
• Providing incentives for terns to move from Rice Island.  For example, researchers worked to keep sea gulls away from the terns this year at East Sand Island in order to encourage them to nest there.  Gulls eat tern eggs.  At Rice Island, conversely, ?lack of gull control provides an incentive for the terns to move from the island,? Roby said.  Additionally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has given permission to the Corps of Engineers to use harassment techniques so that the birds will not nest on Rice Island in 2000.
• Collecting data throughout the nesting season to monitor and evaluate the success of management actions.

Contact:
Bob Lohn, Director
Fish and Wildlife Division
800-452-5161

Significantly, the 72 projects approved this month initially were rejected, in part or in whole, by the panel of independent scientists but earned the scientists? approval after the sponsors revised the projects and submitted them for a second review.  Annual, independent scientific review is a critical feature of the Council's decision-making process.

?This is an important moment for the Council and for the region,? Chairman Todd Maddock of Idaho said.  ?Our approval of these projects demonstrates that we are serious about ensuring that the public's and ratepayers' money is being well-spent.  It also shows that our Independent Scientific Review Panel and project sponsors are successfully working together to bring the highest degree of credibility and accountability to the region's fish and wildlife recovery effort.?

The projects approved today will be forwarded to Bonneville with a recommendation that they be funded in the coming year.  The projects are directed at habitat enhancements and fish production in the Clearwater and Salmon rivers of Idaho, the Yakima, Klickitat and Walla Walla rivers, and Lake Roosevelt, in Washington, the Umatilla, John Day and Hood rivers, and Fifteenmile Creek, in Oregon, and in Montana's Flathead River system.

The projects were reviewed earlier this year by the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, an association of the region's fish and wildlife agencies and Indian tribes, and also by the Independent Scientific Review Panel, a group of 11 scientists recommended to the Council by the National Academy of Sciences.  In its initial look at the projects, the Review Panel was assisted by 27 other scientists organized into peer review groups.  Twelve peer-review scientists assisted the Review Panel in the second review.