September 28, 2006
Working Guidance
EXPERT PANEL PROCESS
Introduction
The intent of this document is to describe an Expert Panel process that will provide initial guidance to Oregon’s recovery planning effort. Specifically, the Expert Panel will:
1. score the relative impact of limiting factors on viability of populations
2. identify and score potential threats based on their impact on limiting factors for populations, strata, and the ESU.
3. identify specific life stages and geographic locations where key and secondary limiting factors and threats need to be addressed.
The effort to identify the most significant limiting factors and threats to population viability is a critical element of Oregon’s effort to create future conditions that will recover and support viability of listed salmonid populations. Whereas many traditional conservation and restoration efforts attempted to broadly and simultaneously address all factors for decline, Oregon’s approach is intended to provide more effective guidance for prioritizing short- and long-term conservation and restoration work.
The Recovery Planning Team will use the Expert Panel conclusions along with input from the Stakeholders Team to develop a final prioritized list of life-stage specific limiting factors and threats that will guide short- and long-term recovery actions.
Definition of Terms and Components of Expert Panel Deliberations
Limiting Factors
Limiting factors are the physical, biological, or chemical conditions and associated ecological processes and interactions (e.g., population size, habitat connectivity, water quality, water quantity, etc.) experienced by the fish that may influence viable salmonid population (VSP) parameters (i.e. abundance, productivity, spatial structure, and diversity).
Limiting Factor Categories
NOAA’s Draft Guidelines for Limiting Factors and Threats Assessments encourages the use of a set of limiting factor categories listed in a 2005 Report to Congress on the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. After considering the suggested list, Oregon has chosen a set that is similar-to but different-from the set NOAA has recommended. Oregon believes that its list and the effort to identify limiting factors and threats at specific life stages and spatial scales will more effectively inform recovery actions that will to remediate the causes of limiting factors.
The categories of limiting factors and definitions used in Oregon’s expert panel deliberation are as follows:
1. Water quantity/hydrograph – Timing and magnitude of flow conditions.
2. Water quality – Water characteristics including temperature, dissolved oxygen, suspended sediment, pH, toxics, etc.
3. Predation – Consumption of naturally produced fish by one or more species (not to include fishery mortality).
4. Competition – Adverse interaction between naturally produced fish and hatchery fish or other species, both of which need some limited environmental factor (i.e. food or space).
5. Nutrients – This limiting factor is primarily directed toward the role of salmon carcasses.
6. Disease – Pathological condition in naturally produced fish resulting from infection.
7. Physical habitat quality/quantity – Quality or quantity of physical habitat. Examples include instream roughness, channel morphology, riparian conditions, fine sediment, etc.
8. Habitat access – Impaired access to spawning and/or rearing habitat. Examples include impassable culverts, delayed migration over dams, dewatered stream channels, etc. If, for example, a stream has been diked, thereby eliminating access to off-channel habitat, habitat access should be considered a problem. If off-channel habitat to which access has been eliminated is in impaired condition, it also considered an element of the physical habitat quality/quantity limiting factor.
9. Population traits – Impaired population condition(s) including: genetic, life history, morphological, productivity, fitness, behavioral characteristics, and population size. Although population traits are caused by other limiting factors, they may also and independently be a limiting factor.
Threats
Threats are the human actions (e.g., fishing, operation of hatcheries, operation of the hydro system, road building, riparian habitat degradation, channel straightening, etc.) or natural (e.g., flood, drought, volcano, tsunami, etc.) events that cause or contribute-to limiting factors. Threats may be associated with one or more specific life cycle stages and may occur in the past, present, or future.
Threat Categories
Five categories of threats are used to describe causes of limiting factors:
- Harvest practices – Direct and indirect mortality associated with fisheries on naturally produced fish.
- Hatchery practices – Negative impact of hatchery practices on naturally produced fish. Hatchery practices include: number of fish released, removal of adults for broodstock, breeding practices, rearing practices, release practices, water quality management, blockage of access to habitat, etc.
- Hydropower – Negative impact of current hydropower-system management on naturally produced fish.
- Landuse practices – Negative impact of current landuse activities on naturally produced fish. Landuse practices include timber harvest, agriculture, urbanization, transportation, mining, etc. This category includes both current landuse practices that are causing limiting factors and impairing fish populations as well as current practices that are not adequate to restore limiting factors caused by past practices.
- Introduced species – Negative impact of non-native plants or animals on naturally produced fish. The impact of hatchery fish should be considered under the hatchery threat category.
Life Stages
Limiting factors and threats are identified for each population by considering impacts across the entire life cycle (gravel to gravel) rather than considering only impacts that might occur in tributaries that define the populations. In order to be as spatially explicit as possible given the time constraints of the process, the Expert Panel will consider life stage specific limiting factors and threats for four specific geographic areas that together encompass the entire lifecycle of the target salmonid populations. These geographic areas and the specific life stages considered are:
1. Tributaries – All streams and rivers within a specific population area (Life stages: eggs, alevin, fry, summer parr, winter parr, smolts, returning adults, spawners).
2. Mainstem Snake and Columbia– The mainstem Snake and Columbia River above Bonneville Dam.
3. Estuary – All tidally influenced areas of the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam, including the Columbia River Plume (Life stages: pre-smolts, smolts, returning adults).
4. Ocean – All saltwater areas that the target populations spend part of their life cycle in that are outside of the estuary (Life stages: sub-adults, adults).
Panel Preparation
Panel members will be provided access to a variety of background information relevant to the deliberation. Access will be provided in the form of document copies or internet access to (1) viability assessments for target populations; (2) a synthesis of current knowledge regarding limiting factors associated with hydropower, harvest, hatcheries, and habitat; and (3) sub-basin plans.
Overview of Panel Deliberation Process
The panel deliberation consists of seven elements, or stages. Stages 1-4 are designed primarily to get panel members focused on considering limiting factors and threats in the context of Oregon’s recovery planning effort and to provide a starting point for detailed discussions and final guidance regarding life stage specific key and secondary limiting factors and threats. Stages 5-7 were designed to provide panel members with a forum to identify, discuss, and reach consensus on the details of the life stage specific key and secondary limiting factors and threats they were tasked with developing. Below are more detailed descriptions of each stage.
First Stage
Panelists rank limiting factors.
Prior to convening, a spreadsheet will be sent to each panelist. The spreadsheet contains worksheets for each target population. An example of the essential content of each worksheet is shown in Table 1.
For each population, panelists assign a limiting-factor-category score to each limiting factor category to indicate the relative effect they believe the limiting factor has on VSP parameters for the specific population they are scoring. Allowable limiting-factor-category scores are: 0 = no effect; 1 = minor effect; 2 = moderate effect; and 3 = major effect. Next, each panelist assigns a threat-factor-category score to each threat category and limiting factor to indicate the relative impact they believe each threat category has on the individual limiting factors. Allowable threat-factor-category scores are: 0 = no impact; 1 = minor impact; 2 = moderate impact; and 3 = major impact. An example of a completed population spreadsheet is shown in Table 3.
Table 1. Example of worksheet used by expert panelists in stage one to assign relative scores to the impact of limiting factors on population viability, and impact of potential threats on limiting factors.
Second Stage
Calculate composite threat/limiting factor category score for each panelist.
For each panelist, a composite score for the relative importance of each threat category within a limiting-factor category is calculated (the product of the limiting-factor-category raw score and the threat-category raw scores). Table 3 shows the results of this stage for the hypothetical panelist worksheet shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Example of completed stage one worksheet depicting an individual panelists view of the relative effect of limiting factors on VSP parameters and impact of threats on limiting factors for a hypothetical population.
Table 3. Example of calculation of stage two composite scores calculated from hypothetical limiting factor and threat scores presented in Table 3.
Third Stage
Calculate average composite threat/limiting factor category score for Expert Panel.
An average score of composite threat/limiting factor category scores for all panelists is calculated (sum of all composite threat scores divided by the number of panelists that completed scoring for the population).
Fourth Stage
Display initial prioritization of relative threat/limiting factor categories.
An initial prioritization of key and secondary threats and limiting factors will be established by the panel facilitators. An example of this prioritization of the averaged threat/limiting factor category scores is shown in Table 4.
It is important to realize that the outcome of this and the preceding stages are intended to serve as a focal point for panel discussions leading to the final limiting factor and threats identification and prioritization as outlined in stages 5-6. Because the information generated in stages 1-4 are designed to stimulate panel deliberations and do not represent the final consensus of the Expert Panel, the specific results generated by stages 1-4 will not be included in the final report.
Table 4. Example of stage four approach of applying break points to average threat/limiting factor category scores to identify key (black cells) and secondary (gray cells) concerns.
Fifth Stage
Panelists develop final threat/limiting factor categories prioritizations.
Panelists review and discuss the initial prioritization of key and secondary threats. This discussion allowed panelists to recall specific data or experience that may have been overlooked during initial scoring of limiting factors and threats. At this stage in the deliberation, agreement will be reached regarding the final prioritization of key and secondary threats for each limiting factor.
Sixth Stage
Panelist identify specific life stages and geographic locations of key and secondary threat/limiting factor categories.
For each key and secondary threat/limiting factor category, the panel will identify specific life stages and geographic locations where the impact needs to be addressed.
Seventh Stage
Panel facilitators compile limiting factor and threat concerns provided by the Expert Panel into life stage and geographic area specific tables for review by panelists.
Panel facilitators compile the information generated in stages 5-6 into tables for target population depicting the specific life stage and geographic location of each key and secondary threat/limiting factor category along with a description of the specific threat and limiting factor. The resulting tables will represent the final guidance of the Expert Panel regarding key and secondary threats and limiting factors to target populations. The follow pages show an example of the final product, as it was developed for winter steelhead and spring Chinook in the Mollala River.
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September 28, 2006
EXAMPLE: Mollala Spring Chinook and Winter Steelhead
Key Concerns:
Code Description .
3 Stray hatchery fish interbreeding with wild fish resulting in a risk of genetic introgression.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/spawners/tributaries
8a Impaired physical habitat from past and/or present landuse practices. Specific concerns include: removal of large wood from stream channels; inadequate large wood recruitment due to impaired riparian conditions; stream straightening and channelization; revetments; loss of access to off-channel habitat; and floodplain connectivity to stream channels.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/winter parr/tributaries; Winter Steelhead/winter parr/tributaries.
EXAMPLE: Mollala Spring Chinook and Winter Steelhead (continued)
Key Concerns (continued):
Code Description .
8b Loss of holding pools from past and/or present landuse practices resulting in increased pre-spawning mortality.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/returning adults/tributaries.
9a Elevated water temperatures from past and/or present landuse practices resulting in decreased survival and/or growth.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/summer parr/tributaries.
9c Elevated water temperatures from past and/or present landuse practices leading to pre-spawning mortality.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/returning adults/tributaries.
Secondary Concerns:
Code Description .
1a Mortality from ocean fisheries.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/adults/ocean.
1b Mortality as a result of incidental catch in gill net fishery.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/returning adults/estuary.
1c Mortality associated with catch and release fishery.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/returning adults/tributaries.
2a Impaired access to habitat due to road crossings and other landuse related passage impediments on wadeable sized streams.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Winter Steelhead/fry, parr, smolts, & returning adults/tributaries.
4a Competition with hatchery fish of all species.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/parr & smolts/estuary; Winter Steelhead/smolts/estuary.
EXAMPLE: Mollala Spring Chinook and Winter Steelhead (continued)
Secondary Concerns (continued):
Code Description .
5a Impaired estuarine habitat due to the cumulative impacts of the Columbia River hydropower and Willamette River hydropower/flood control systems. Specifically, the Expert Panel expressed the concern that cumulative impact of altered hydrograph, higher water temperatures, altered nutrient cycling and reduced sediment routing has lead to a reduction in both the quantity and quality of habitat, as well as a shift in food webs to the benefit of exotic species to the detriment of conditions favorable to anadromous salmon.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/parr & smolts/estuary; Winter Steelhead/smolts/estuary.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/parr, smolts/estuary; Winter Steelhead/smolts/estuary.
5b Impaired estuarine habitat due to the cumulative impacts of past and current landuse. Specifically, the Expert Panel expressed the concern that cumulative impact of dredging, filling, diking, and channelization have significantly reduced the quality and quantity of estuarine habitat.
Species/Life-stages/Location: Spring Chinook/parr & smolts/estuary; Winter Steelhead/smolts/estuary.
6a Predation by non-native fish exacerbated by the impact of landuse and the Columbia River and Willamette hydropower/flood control systems on habitat conditions.