Implementation of the pacific salmon treaty requires significant allocation of the agency?s management, technical assessment staffs and administrative support personnel in order to comply with…

Implementation of the pacific salmon treaty requires significant allocation of the agency?s management, technical assessment staffs and administrative support personnel in order to comply with treaty provisions. These odfw representatives must provide inter/intra-agency coordination and consultation with other PST/PSC entities and their members to ensure full participation in the commission panels, its technical committees, and management processes. Funding provides support for odfw southern panel members and their alternates when these personnel are preparing for - and are active in - the pacific salmon commission (PSC) process. Staff prepare and deliver briefings and consultations in preparation for, and in response to, actions taken by the PSC, the southern panel and its technical committees. Staff participate in southern panel meetings, provide biometrics support for selective fisheries planning, and represent odfw on the chinook technical committee (CTC), coho technical committee (cotc), the selective fisheries evaluation committee and other committees to provide administrative support for PSC performance reporting and contract preparation. Funding provides support for odfw to develop its chinook salmon indicator stock program, coordinate field operations and technical activities and provide data exchange services, as required under provisions of the treaty. Data collected from these projects and regional fisheries provide essential technical information for PSC technical committee evaluations of management measures and stock rebuilding based on catch, effort, escapement, stock distribution and size/age data for relevant chinook and coho salmon stocks. Funding allows odfw to implement chinook salmon indicator stock tagging, tag recovery and coded wire tag (CWT) identification operations in response to the adopted harvest strategies, rebuilding data requirements and mandated indicator stock program for chinook salmon, as agreed to under provisions of the treaty. Several techniques are used for stock identification including (1) evaluation of coded wire tags (CWT) and (2) analysis of scale characteristics. Successful implementation of the treaty and its management and stock rebuilding provisions are reliant on the ability of the fish stock identification program to purchase and apply tags, recover cwts, and decode tags for stock composition information on stocks and fisheries important to treaty management areas. This funding allows odfw to monitor fisheries and recover cwts in ocean and columbia river fisheries for key stocks that contribute to mixed stock fisheries under the treaty. This program funds, in part, sampling of oregon?s ocean commercial and sport fisheries, and columbia river and coastal estuary/freshwater fisheries for total effort, catch and sampling CWT marked fish to determine the magnitude of indicator stock harvest. This program is essential for monitoring fishery interceptions of four major oregon production stock units of chinook salmon, including: columbia river fall-run (tule) chinook salmon; willamette river spring-run chinook salmon; north coastal fall-run chinook salmon; and mid-coast fall-run chinook salmon. CWT recovery information is reported to the pacific states marine fishery commission (psmfc) and to PSC technical committees. Analyses of GSI, stock composition, population characterization and productivity contribute to the PSC chinook model. This project provides annual spawning escapement data for oregon coastal fall-run chinook salmon that is a key component of the treaty?s abundance based management program for establishing fisheries and rebuilding and conservation of oregon?s natural coastal fall-run chinook salmon. Adult spawning surveys are conducted in 14 coastal rivers that comprise the north oregon coast (NOC) and mid oregon coast (MOC) stock aggregates assessed under the PSC?s abundance-based management rebuilding program for chinook salmon. Surveys are conducted in hist