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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>SALMON
'RIVER ORIGIN' OCEAN TRACKING PROGRAM EXPANDS <BR>Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007
(PST) <BR><BR>A successful pilot program launched last year that used genetics
to determine the river origin of chinook salmon caught off Oregon's central
coast will begin its second season this month and expand to the entire coast off
Oregon as well as to northern California waters.<BR><BR>The hope is to discover
more about the distribution of salmon in the ocean so that fisheries managers
can make in-season decisions and allow the harvest of healthy stocks while
mitigating the harvest of weakened runs.<BR><BR>The ultimate goal is to avoid
shutting down the entire coastal fishery -- as happened in 2006 to protect
weakened runs from the <B>Klamath River</B>, say Oregon State University
researchers who are leading the study.<BR><BR>"Every piece of the project that
we experimented with last year worked," said Gil Sylvia, director of OSU's
Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station and a co-principal investigator on the
project. "We have the protocols down. We know we can identify with a high degree
of certainty the origin of wild or hatchery fish caught offshore -- and do it
within roughly 24 hours.<BR><BR>"Now our goals are to learn whether
<B>Klamath</B> stocks are aggregated within a specific area at a certain time,
and whether there are differences in the catch composition close to shore and
outside of six miles," he added.<BR><BR>Dubbed Project CROOS (Collaborative
Research on Oregon Ocean Salmon), the effort is a unique collaboration among
scientists, commercial fishermen and fisheries managers. <BR><BR>The 2006 pilot
study was funded by a grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board and
coordinated by the Oregon Salmon Commission and researchers at OSU's Hatfield
Marine Science Center in Newport.<BR><BR>During the field studies, 72 Oregon
fishing vessels took part and provided 2,567 viable tissue samples from
fresh-caught salmon to an OSU genetics laboratory in Newport, Ore. <BR><BR>Of
that total, OSU geneticists were able to assign a probability of 90 percent or
more in determining river origin to 2,097 fish -- meaning they could determine
with a high degree of certainty the hatchery, river basin, or coastal region of
origin of about four out of every five fish. <BR><BR>Confirmation for their
protocol came from traditional research methods, pointed out Michael Banks, an
OSU geneticist and co-principal investigator on the study.<BR><BR>"Thirty-one of
the fish had coded wire tags attached, listing their hatchery of origin," Banks
said. "We ran our genetic profile on the tissue samples without knowing what the
coded wire tags said and correctly identified the hatchery of origin for all 31
fish. That's pretty good confirmation that the testing works."<BR><BR>The Oregon
Watershed Enhancement Board has provided another grant, totaling $590,000, for
the 2007 work, which will run from Astoria to Brookings encompassing all four of
Oregon's offshore salmon regions. A portion of the grant will fund an expected
70-90 fishermen who will provide fins and other tissue samples to the OSU
researchers, who hope to analyze more than 9,000 samples this year.<BR><BR>"The
challenge is to figure out how to corral the fishermen into the right areas at
the right time so that we can collect an estimated 1 percent sample of the stock
at a given time," Banks said. "We're aiming for 200 samples every week, in all
four regions."<BR><BR>The National Marine Fisheries Service is providing another
$400,000 to help offset costs of participating fishermen and the genetic testing
of the samples at the OSU laboratory in Newport and in two NMFS laboratories.
This funding will help support the new research in California, which is
establishing its own pilot study this year based on the Oregon
model.<BR><BR>During a four-week period beginning this week, the California
Salmon Council hopes to collect about 1,600 tissue samples provided by 16
California fishermen who are working the waters north and south of Point Arena,
according to David Goldenberg, CEO of the council.<BR><BR>"The goals are very
similar to what Oregon is trying to accomplish with the<B> Klamath </B>River
runs, but we're a year behind," Goldenberg said. "This is a pilot project for
us, to get the kinks worked out, get the sampling procedures under our belts,
and to hopefully secure federal funding for next year. We'd like to involve 100
to 150 boats next year.<BR><BR>"The other objective is to spread the word among
the fleet that this research is not something to be afraid of," Goldenberg
added.<BR><BR>In Oregon, the fishing industry has gotten the message loud and
clear and welcome the research, Sylvia said. Many of the fishermen are
particularly interested in some of the oceanographic data the researchers
gathered last year, using buoys and programmable undersea gliders to determine
the ocean's temperature, salinity, chlorophyll level and dissolved oxygen
content in the areas the fish were caught.<BR><BR>"I started fishing in 1970 and
this is the most optimistic I've been about any kind of research relating to
salmon," said Paul Merz, one of the project's fisherman who fishes out of
Charleston. "I'm still a cynic when it comes to management decisions. But this
is the science that has been missing in all of the policy arguments -- and it's
something where you can see the immediate results."<BR><BR>Two other new
initiatives will be part of Project CROOS in 2007, according to Sylvia. The OSU
researchers will work with fishery managers to create a trial management
simulation model for ocean salmon fishing.<BR><BR>"Before the science can
realistically lead to new management protocols, we need to start thinking about
the logistics of such a system," Sylvia said. "Right now, we don't even know all
of the questions to ask. But if we start looking at such a management system --
even in its roughest form -- some of the challenges and opportunities will
become clear."<BR><BR>A second development will be the creation of a 24-hour
website that will be part of the decision-making model. But it also will include
a variety of data accessible to fishermen, and information about fresh-caught
individual salmon that will be available to consumers.<BR><BR>"Think about going
into a seafood market in Portland, or in New York City, for that matter, and
buying a salmon caught off Oregon, and tracking down the day it was caught, the
location, and the river of origin," Sylvia said. "Then you can click on another
link and read about the fishing vessel that caught the salmon, and the crew that
works the boat.<BR><BR>"Some of the fishermen are as excited about the marketing
potential of the research as they are with the management potential," he
added.<BR><BR>The researchers hope to have the new website operational by late
summer.<BR><BR>* Related Stories from the CBBs MembersArchives:<BR><BR>---
(8/4/2006) RESEARCH USES DNA TO IDENTIFY OCEAN SALMONS HOME <BR><BR></FONT><U><A
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