This Technical Report of the Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team (IMST) focuses on the technical and scientific issues involving (a) management of coho salmon harvest by the State of Oregon and Pacific Fisheries Management Council and (b) the analysis of salmonid population dynamics under the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds....
Many contemporary fisheries and wildlife issues are complex, messy, and divisive. Most share a set of common characteristics including a lack of comprehensive scientific information, a limited understanding of biological processes, a scarcity of agency staff, time, money, and a tendency for differences over policy preferences to end up as...
The Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team (IMST) convened 19 regional leaders in salmon management and research in a workshop on Goals for Recovery of Oregon Coastal Native (OCN) Stocks on August 4-5, 1999. The main purposes of the workshop were to 1) define the concept of recovery and 2) to identify...
Coho salmon have been the most important variety of salmon caught commercially in Oregon. Until recently, coho were also the most common variety in most coastal streams. Based on records from salmon canneries, coho in Oregon north of Cape Blanco (near Port Orford) numbered about 1.25 million adults annually 100...
Three factors were found to be significantly correlated with the fluctuations and trends in silver salmon production in Oregon. Logging was found to adversely affect the runs of salmon in later years. Exceptional winter floods seem to produce poor resulting runs. Low summer water flows also appear to produce lower...
Recent successes of hatcheries in producing coho salmon have stimulated searches for additional hatchery locations in coastal watersheds. In the past hatcheries were designed with gravity flow water supplies, but in more recent years pumping the water has proven feasible. Because of the acceptance of pumping, naturally impounded waters are...
The Ocean Salmon Management Program is responsible for obtaining fishery and biological data, analyzing these data and recommending appropriate management options for the ocean fisheries. Proposed management options are designed to achieve the optimum use of the salmon resource on a sustained basis. The ocean salmon recreational fishery is now...
This information report contains the results of a program to distribute surplus fry to streams underutilized by the natural population. It discusses the stocking and evaluation procedures, and gives the results.
Diseases caused by parasites are recognized as significant sources of mortality in wild fish populations. I assessed the impacts of multispecies parasitism on a threatened stock of juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). A crucial prerequisite to this research was proper identification of parasites, which can be difficult for species lacking...
Juvenile coho salmon (101-400 mm) were sampled by
purse seine off the Pacific Coast from Waatch Point,
Washington to Four Mile Creek, Oregon, out to 30 mi
offshore, during the months of May, June, and September in
1982 and 1983. Sea surface temperature, surface salinity,
surface chlorophyll-a concentration, and Secchi...
In addition to standard spawning surveys for coho salmon, this report contains additional sampling in the Yaquina River, at the Salmon River Hatchery and tributaries of Coos Bay "to document straying of private hatchery coho salmon from the Oregon Aqua-Foods (OAF) facility at South Beach, Yaquina Bay, and Anadromous, Inc.,...
Loss of lowland estuarine and freshwater off-channel habitats along the Pacific Northwest coast has contributed to the decline of salmonid populations. These habitats serve as nursery grounds for juvenile salmonids providing them with food, winter shelter, and a transition zone between freshwater and saltwater. Lowland areas have undergone anthropogenic alterations...
The typical coho salmon life history has been characterized by juvenile fish that spend their entire first year in freshwater habitats before migrating into estuaries as smolts. However, reports of early migrating coho fry (age 0), including migration downstream to estuarine habitats, date back to the 1960s. Until a few...
Juvenile salmonids display highly variable spatial and temporal movement patterns that are influenced by density dependent (e.g., competition, predation) and density independent (e.g., genetics, stream discharge, physical habitat conditions) factors. The effects of these factors differ with fish life history stage, but will ultimately affect how salmonids utilize freshwater nursery...
We evaluated the effectiveness of using hatchery coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch presmolts to rebuild wild populations in Oregon coastal streams. Juvenile and adult populations were monitored in 15 stocked and 15 unstacked streams from summer 1980 until summer 1985. During the summers following the planting of presmolts, the number of...
Natural and gabion modified habitats containing coho salmon
(Oncorhynchus kisutch) were observed and measured seasonally in East
Fork Lobster Creek, a fifth order stream in western Oregon. Coho
salmon usually inhabited backwater and secondary channel pools in
winter. Large wood debris complexes and undercut banks were the
primary sources of...
Outreach is a key element in natural resource public participation processes in order to create an engaging, thoughtful, and productive environment for citizen involved decision-making. This project examined the utility of a needs assessment as an initial outreach tool within the context of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries...