Inter-Tribal Workshop on Coho Reintroduction and Production Programs

In pre-colonial times, returns of Coho Salmon to the interior Columbia numbered in the hundreds of thousands.  However, habitat loss and degradation, over-harvest, development of the hydrosystem, and lack of interest by the state fisheries agencies in Coho lead to extirpation of all populations in the interior Columbia by the latter 1900s.  It has been the tribes who subsequently developed programs to reintroduce the species.  In the 1990s, programs to reestablish natural populations were initiated by the Yakima Nation in the Yakima, Wenatchee and Methow rivers, and by the Nez Perce Tribe in the Clearwater River.  Harvest mitigation programs were initiated by the Yakima Nation in the Klickitat River and by the Umatilla Tribe in the Umatilla River.  A Workshop was organized to bring together representatives from each of these tribal programs, so that they could share information from on respective programs.  For the reintroduction programs, discussion focused on issues of broodstock management, juvenile rearing and release strategies, frequency and distribution of natural spawning, trends in escapement of both hatchery-origin and natural-origin fish, contribution to harvest.  For the Harvest programs discussion focused on rates of harvest in ocean and in-river fisheries, constraints to harvest within the tribal Zone 6 and terminal fisheries, and issues related to accounting for the growing escapement from these new programs in forecasting and harvest management.The workshop schedule and presentations are listed below:

• Coho Reintroduction and Production Programs Workshop Agenda

• Summary Points 2013 Coho Workshop

Presentations:

• Inter-Tribal Workshop on Coho Reintroduction and Production Programs

• Yakima River Basin Coho Reintroduction Feasibility Study

• Mid Columbia Coho Reintroduction Program

• Clearwater River Coho Salmon
  

• A Brief History of the Umatilla River Coho Program

• Yakama Nation Fisheries Klickitat River Coho Program

• Fishery Management for Coho