Reports & papers By category Symposium on Ocean Conditions

Transcript of the panel discussion

I. Management Strategies I: Ocean Conditions and Management of the Freshwater System.

How do we put the scientific information presented today into a context that helps policymakers and resource managers ? what does, or should, this science mean to the people on the ground? Silverberg asked the panel.

Larry Cassidy said that, earlier today, the Nestucca example was discussed; you mentioned two tributaries, and treatment vs. non-treatment... define treatment for me, Cassidy said.  Treatment was the experimental treatment, Dan Bottom replied -- the restoration of the habitat, then the measurement of the output of fish from that system -- the fish that survived the winter, then outmigrated.  In your discussion, Cassidy said, you mentioned that one of your resolutions was to have management in a more conservative way ? how would you define that?  First of all, we believe the ?pinch periods? are really critical to determining the survival of fish, Bottom replied.  If you look at the history of our management of this fishery, as we have passed through the various regimes, we seem to have lost productive capacity.  During the last regime, the peak of good conditions was lower than the one before.  One interpretation of that fact might be that, through habitat loss and the loss of stocks, we are no longer carrying enough fish through the ?pinch periods? to provide the same production potential the next time conditions improve.  We need to find ways to carry those stocks through the hard times, Bottom said; that may mean being more conservative during the more productive periods.  We may need to re-evaluate our management policies, in terms of their effects on diversity.

[Editor's note:  The Nestucca River study can be accessed online.]

Next, Mike Field noted that, in listening to today's presentations, he was struck by how much information is out there -- climatic, biological etc.  Where is the coordination happening for this effort, between agencies within the U.S., and between U.S. and international agencies?  Also is there a central clearing-house for this information?  We coordinate these ocean studies very tightly with our Canadian counterparts, as well as with the group working in California, Jack Helle replied. As far as a clearing-house for the information, that is more problematic; while the scientific part of this effort is being carefully coordinated, I'm not sure that science is finding its way into the hands of the public and the decision-makers.  We are experiencing some funding problems, despite the fact that we're doing some very exciting and productive work, Helle said.

What would be the best vehicle for such a clearing-house? Field asked.  Are you talking about availability between scientists, or to policymakers? Bottom asked.  For everyone, Field asked ? how can we get access to all of the research that's being done? Just read the newspapers, Robert Francis replied ? hardly a week goes by that I'm not contacted by one reporter or another; articles are being published in both the popular and scientific presses.  I'm not sure there needs to be a central clearinghouse, he said; I think you just need to stay aware of what's going on.  There is more coordination between entities on this effort than on any other scientific effort I've ever been involved with, Francis said. George Taylor observed that, in the last five to 10 years, there have been more and more of these multidisciplinary studies, because of the difficulty of finding a single source of funding.  We all see the same problem from different perspectives, he said; there is strength in this type of diversity of background and perspective.

Donna Darm said that, from her perspective, the message from today's workshop is both encouraging and frustrating.  It is encouraging because, for some stocks on the brink of extinction, it suggests that there may be some relief on the horizon.  It is frustrating because it also creates a refuge or an excuse to those who resist change; for example, one of NMFS? main concerns has been the restoration of freshwater habitat.  NMFS? message has consistently been that, unless there are major changes, in many parts of the Pacific Northwest, in the way we use land and water and manage growth, we will see stock extinctions.  When we talk about ocean conditions, there are those in the region who seize upon that information to say it's not the freshwater habitat that is the problem -- it's the ocean.  My question is, how should we talk about the importance of the interaction between freshwater habitat and production and ocean habitat and production? she asked.  More narrowly, how should we focus our research and monitoring on the interaction between freshwater production and ocean production? she asked.

Francis replied that there is growing information that the ocean environment has a significant impact on salmon.  It's obvious that we can't engineer our way out of this problem very easily.  We need, therefore, to look at how the salmon have ?engineered their way out of it,? which has been to evolve a very complex population structure; this allows them to deal not only with variability, but also with change.  They have taken advantage of the diversity of freshwater environments to evolve complex and diverse life-history strategies, which allow these fish to deal with the variability in both the freshwater and the ocean environments.  It seems to me that now that we understand that the ocean has a huge impact, we need to strengthen our efforts to restore healthy, connected freshwater and estuarine environment, so that these metapopulations can deal with change and thrive, Francis said.

Helle responded to Darm's first question by saying that, when ocean conditions are bad, we must be especially conservative in our management of freshwater habitat.  If ocean conditions are bad, the tendency is to say human efforts make little difference, because the fish are just going to die anyway -- in my opinion, that's when we need to be very careful about what we do in the freshwater habitat.  Helle noted that there is a tendency to view the salmon as essentially freshwater creatures, when in fact they spend 90% of their life in the ocean; he drew an analogy between the salmon life-cycle and a North Dakota farmer who experiences chaos and danger on a vacation to New York City.  In a way, it's an apt analogy, Helle said ? that's exactly what happens to the salmon when they come into the freshwater environment.

Richard Beamish noted that all animals reproduce in an environment that is safe for their young; salmon reproduce in freshwater for that reason.  The freshwater environment ensures that there is a diversity of genetic traits, so that there is optimal survival when these animals enter the harsher environment, which is the ocean.  In order to ensure that some salmon always come back, in light of the fact that ocean mortality is estimated at 90%-99%, salmon need the genetic diversity they acquire by surviving in freshwater, Beamish said.  In other words, despite the impact of the ocean environment, the freshwater environment is an absolutely vital part of the life-history of these fish ? it ensures both successful reproduction and the genetic diversity that allows these animals to survive in a harsh marine environment.

You asked about the importance of the interaction between the freshwater and the ocean, Bottom said. There are two places where that interaction occurs, which really aren't separable.  One is at the level of the physical process; the other is the migrations of the salmon themselves, which maintain the links between those habitats by virtue of their movements.  What we do in freshwater sets the stage for how these fish are going to survive in the next step of their life-cycle, said Bottom; if we believe upwelling is critical, for example, if our upstream management actions select against the early portion of a given run, the later migrants might completely miss that important window.  The survivors carry a history with them, through every link in the life-cycle chain, and if we artificially select against portions of a given run, then our freshwater management actions can have a significant impact on these stocks.

Eric Bloch said that, aside from education for education's sake, the practical purpose this is all leading to is the development of a management plan for the restoration of anadromous stocks in the basin.  Before we can develop a plan, we need to agree on a management philosophy.  You have presented a great deal of scientific information today which suggests at least some of what that management philosophy should be, said Bloch.  For example, Dr. Bottom mentioned the concept of ?conservative? management, and I was curious about how he would apply that, in a practical sense.  Also, Dr. Beamish has suggested that, if they were left alone, salmon might be able to solve their own problems -- again, what does that suggest, in terms of practical management philosophy?

Bottom replied that, historically, salmon stocks in the region have been managed based on prediction; once we run our models and generate numbers, we have a tendency to hang our hats on them.  Stock-recruitment curves are a prime example; when we start to believe our models, that's when the problems begin.  The real question is, can we develop a philosophy based on hedging our bets, rather than predictions, so that we maintain our options in case we're wrong?  When the Oregon land use goals and guidelines for estuaries were developed, for example, a conscious decision was made to maintain a diversity of estuary types.  The plan set aside some estuaries for conservation, some for development, and some to remain in their natural state ? in other words, they chose an approach that didn't rely on prediction, but covered all of the available options, in case management mistakes were made.  That's a philosophical approach that could also pay dividends in the salmon arena, Bottom said.

Beamish said that, in his opinion, overall, around the Pacific, we do a pretty good job of managing salmon.  We may have gotten off-track somewhat during the ?80s, he said, primarily because we thought we knew more about the salmon than we actually did.  We have to live with what we did during those decades, said Beamish; I think the management philosophy we need to move toward is one that protects wild salmon, and recognizes that we never really were in charge in the first place.  Given the fact that we still have to live with a great deal of uncertainty, it is the process that becomes the deciding factor.

Ed Casillas commented that introducing a holistic component to the management scheme is also very important; that's what we're talking about here today -- a more balanced approach to how we view the world.  We can't focus on a single facet of this problem while excluding all of the others, he said.  Also, engineering our way out of these problems is not a practical approach; engineering solutions alone are not going to get us where we want to go; we need to recognize, at this point, how little we really know for sure.

Brian Allee observed that, from the point of view of managing the salmon resource, it is disturbing that funding apparently is a problem with this effort.  If we're going to develop predictive indices for the ocean and estuarine environments, and develop a management plan that might allow us to decrease our reliance on hatcheries based on the ocean environment, how can we do that in the absence of a steady, well-funded ocean and estuary research effort? Allee asked.  My question, basically, is how do we manage these populations, using the information you've been able to acquire to date?

Helle replied that the stability of funding for this type of scientific effort is critical right now, and the climate for long-term research funding continues to be very poor.  If you?re studying chinook salmon, for example, it takes 12 years to evaluate two broods, which tells you very little in the larger scheme of things.  We have to have more long-term funding stability, in order to do long-term monitoring.  In recent years, because of changing ocean conditions, scientists have gotten together in ways they never have before; there is now a tremendous exchange of information and resources between oceanographers, biologists, climatologists and others. We're all fighting the same thing ? the need to find stable funding sources for long-term investigations. Helle said.

Phil Roger noted that in 1995, the Tribes produced their plan for the restoration of salmon in the Columbia Basin.  I'm heartened to hear many of the same ideas that plan presented echoed here today, Roger said; in particular, recognition of the interconnectedness between ecosystems and life-stages, and the idea that, if we give them a chance, the salmon will find their own way out of this morass, and find a way to persist.  With respect to the Nestucca information, Roger said, the information was very interesting; habitat restoration is one of the strategies a lot of people can buy into without controversy.  Can you give us some more details about the magnitude of the problem on the Nestucca ? the number of stream miles involved, and whether adult returns have reflected the increase in juvenile production?

We have indices of returning spawners, but we don't have a trap which would give us  accurate adult counts, Bottom replied -- we have trends which seem to reflect an increase in adult production, but I haven't personally seen this data, so I can't say for sure.  What I can say, Bottom continued, is that we are developing a series of index sites up and down the Oregon coast, where we will be looking at smolts out of a system and adults returning back to those systems.  It will be our first opportunity to compare freshwater and ocean survival for wild fish over the long term, Bottom said.

How much do we have to invest, and what are we going to get out of our investment? Roger asked.  These are fairly sizable investments, Bottom replied ? there is a lot of construction involved.

[Editor's note:  Dan Bottom has indicated that further information on the Nestucca River study can be accessed at http://osu.orst.edu/Dept/ODFW/freshwater/salmonidhab/nestucca/index.html]
 

II. Management Strategies II: Ocean Conditions and the ?Four Hs.?

Silverberg provided a brief introduction to this section of the discussion, recapping the main points made during the last session.  She noted that this section of the panel discussion is designed to get at a more specific question: What should be done with regard to the four Hs? What management changes should be made in response to the information presented today?

Cassidy said that one of the issues he wrestles with continually, in looking at the breathtaking amounts of money we spend on restoring the salmon, is, how do we spend those funds to produce the greatest public benefit? Most of your studies are focused on chum, pinks and sockeye, while most of the concern in my state is on chinook, coho and steelhead.  How do we change that, Cassidy asked, and wouldn't that be a wise step?

Helle replied that chums and pinks are rewarding to study because of their short (two-year) life-cycle ? you get information back fast, and because chums have virtually no freshwater rearing history.  They do all of their growing in the marine environment, which makes them an excellent barometer of ocean conditions, he said.  You get answers more quickly, which may apply to the other species as well.  Coho are very difficult to study, because, in Alaska, at least, they don't enter the river to spawn until October, November or December; at that point, most researchers are more interested in writing up their results from the earlier portion of the season than they are in fighting the elements to do another study ? starting in October, the storms come in one after another off the North Pacific, which makes field conditions extremely challenging, to say the least.  However, said Helle, I agree with you that we need to spend more effort on chinook and steelhead, and I think that's something that has gotten better in the past few years.

Casillas noted that his study is focused on chinook and coho, and chinook are also being studied in Alaska.  There is also Canadian research on chinook, coho and steelhead, he said; we would like to do more work on steelhead in the ocean, but we really don't have a good handle on where they go ? they are very dispersed and hard to find.  GLOBEC is also starting a five-year program to study coho and chinook off Southern Oregon and Northern California, beginning next year, Casillas added.

Field asked whether there is any hope, given the fact that salmon are highly adaptive, that they might be able to adapt themselves and thrive in a changed hydrosystem, and the kind of management regime we have in place now.  Obviously we still have a spring freshet, he said, but peak flows in the Columbia system aren't anywhere near what they were before the dams were built.

The short answer is, I don't know, Casillas replied. There are many factors that drive survival and productivity, obviously; flow being one of them.  We're still trying to understand the role of flow in the big picture, he said; if we were to improve flows somehow, it is likely that other elements and variables could work against that improvement, such that the outcome would still be the same.  We're trying to understand the importance of flow, then develop a suite of alternatives we could employ to improve conditions for salmon.

But can the salmon adapt to the management regime that is currently in place in the Northwest? Field asked.  It's unlikely -- the adaptive mechanism of salmon is measured on a geologic scale, not a scale of years, Casillas replied.  Bottom added that, in a sense, the salmon have adapted, and we're seeing those life-histories that are able to live with the system as it is currently configured and operated do better.  Temperature conditions are another case in point -- they have eliminated certain life-histories already, and what we're left with are those few life histories that can adapt to the conditions we currently have.

Next up was Darm, who noted that there are now about two million annual adult returns to the Columbia system, compared to perhaps 16 million historically.  This is true despite the fact that about the same number of juveniles are now leaving the system as did in historic times; the suggestion, then, is that, during times of low ocean productivity, such as we've seen over the past 20 years or so, there may be a limit to the carrying capacity of the estuary and ocean.  Taking that further, it has been suggested that, through hatchery production, we may be overloading the carrying capacity of the estuary and ocean, and detrimentally impacting the survival of wild fish by overloading the system with hatchery fish competing for the same resources, Darm said.  Dan Bottom has noted that climatic patterns affect conditions in both the freshwater and the marine environment, which suggests that there may be some regulatory mechanism that affects both freshwater and ocean productivity.  How likely is it that we have done some harm to the survival of wild fish in the estuary and the ocean by overloading their carrying capacities with hatchery fish? Darm asked.  Also, does it make more sense to try to predict what ocean conditions may be like, and adjust our hatchery production accordingly, or does it make more sense to impose a conservative cap on our hatchery production, given the fact that our ability to predict those ocean conditions is limited?

I'm afraid you may be right, Beamish replied.  We no longer believe that the carrying capacity is limited by the number of juveniles; what that means is that you need to reconsider your hatchery management.  That doesn't mean you close all of the hatcheries down; it simply means that you need to look carefully at what you?re trying to achieve, given our current understanding of the factors that are regulating abundance.  With respect to your question about wild salmon, what you need to do is find out what the percentages of hatchery and wild salmon are in your areas.  In British Columbia and the Strait of Georgia, for example, we estimate that the percentage of hatchery coho and chinook is 75%-80%; somehow, we've gone from a very small percentage of hatchery fish to a very high percentage of hatchery fish.  To me, that means there is some sort of interaction, Beamish said; I think the interaction is in the ocean, but I can't explain how it works.

Helle noted that there are two aspects to the hatchery production question -- you can, as Donna has suggested, overload the carrying capacities of the estuary and ocean.  There is also the genetic aspect of hatchery production -- if you transplant non-native stocks, they tend to stray; if you use indigenous stocks, you minimize straying.  Basically, my concern is that straying could be having a major impact on the wild stock genetics in the Northwest, Helle said -- I'm not against  hatcheries, in the right situation, but I also think they can do a lot of damage if they're not used properly.

Next up was Bloch, who observed that research is a sort of stepchild, in some ways, but it is also an essential component to a wise management strategy.  We've talked about developing an integrated monitoring and research program to look at every link in the salmon habitat chain, he said, asking the science panelists to identify one critical research need to help the salmon managers.

Francis agreed that research is a management strategy; we need to take bold actions that require management decisions.  It seems to me that, in order to experiment at the ecosystem scale, so that we're not just fine-tuning bits and pieces, we need to work in partnership with management, he said.

Beamish said his one research project would be the ability to identify wild salmon.  If the question is for a larger area of research, it would be the movement to larger, ecosystem management.

Bottom said his suggestion would be the fundamental issue of how much the fish use the estuary.  The same questions apply to the marshes as well -- we don't know how much those systems are being used as rearing habitat for salmon, he said.

Taylor said we need to continue to learn about the cause-and-effect relationships between El Ni? and the Southern Oscillation Effect; we also need to take the next step to an operational approach, and talk boldly about how forecasting skills can help us manage the system better.

Casillas said his priority would be the ability to get out in the field and look directly at what is going on, and the support from management to do that.  We can't answer all of these questions at the computer, he said; we need the ability to go out in the field and see what's going on.  In other words, we need the support for the kind of research that is required ? we need critical thinkers from different disciplines out there in the field, with the support to bring a variety of expertise to bear on the problem.

Helle suggested that the availability of stable funding for long-term research is a critical need, as is the need for field stations doing long-term observations on various species. We were doing that, beginning in the 1930s in Alaska, he said, but we gave up on it, because of lack of funding.  There are too many graduate students that are being trained at the computer now, he said ? we need to get people back into the field, doing long-term, hands-on studies.

Next, Brian Allee asked whether any of the panel members are bold enough to predict when we might see a turnaround in ocean conditions in our part of the world.  Also, with regard to the management actions involved in sequencing smolt releases from barges and hatcheries, can we develop a protocol or index to help manage the system to optimize survival?

Taylor said he has publicly suggested, as early as 1995, that we are now entering a cooler, wetter period that would last for the next 20-25 years.  In other words, he said, maybe conditions already are changing ? they look pretty good this year.

With respect to your second question, said Beamish, we really don't understand the mechanisms of ocean survival and mortality very well -- we don't understand how salmon regulate their abundance naturally, which makes it difficult to say what we can do to optimize ocean survival.  It could be that the large releases of chum salmon are causing survival problems for coho.

Next up was Roger, who noted that managers tend to take positions that they think are risk-averse.  Often, decisions won't be made and status quo will be preserved if the risk is perceived as too high.  Despite the fact that natural systems are much noisier than laboratory conditions, can you give me a sense of what degree of accuracy you might expect from the field studies you propose?

There are different ways to take risks, Francis replied.  There are two types of errors you can make when you?re trying to do inference: you can reject a hypothesis when it's true, or you can accept a hypothesis when it's false.  In taking a more holistic perspective, we alter the kinds of risks we're willing to take from the first type to the second.  When you?re dealing with conservation issues, which can have very long-term consequences, we have to pay a lot more attention to minimizing the second type of error, Francis said.

Bruce Suzumoto from the Public Power Council observed that it appears, from what he's heard at this conference, that ocean conditions have at least as much to do with the survival and recovery of salmon as the freshwater environment.  Yet the spending on studying ocean conditions is only a fraction of the amount spent on freshwater recovery measures.  What do the panel members think should be done about that?

Cassidy replied that he had written a note to himself earlier in today's session, to the effect that there's nothing we can do about ocean conditions.  I don't know the answer to that question, Cassidy said; it's one of the most difficult issues we have to address.

There are two aspects to that question, Roger said -- one is from a salmon managers? perspective; the ocean is out there, but there isn't much we can do about it.  In an ecological sense, we need a better understanding of ocean conditions on salmon survival; however, I'm not sure what level of resolution we need for that answer.  We also need to think about the funding aspect ? how can we coordinate activities better, so that the amount that is being spent is spent as effectively as possible?

Field noted that, as managers, we have a responsibility to move into research that will allow us to understand what's going on in the estuary and the ocean.  If we look at only one aspect of the life-cycle, he said, we haven't really done our job, and I think that's something you'll see the Council push for more vigorously in the near future ? more research in the estuary and ocean.

There isn't much we can do about ocean conditions, said Darm; however, there are things we can do in the estuary, and I think that's where we should put our resources, because all of the fish in the Columbia system use the estuary.  My agency has focused much of its effort on freshwater habitat, and not very much on habitat in the estuary ? I think what we've heard today suggests that that is an important place to focus our resources.

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