Taneum Creek PIT Tag Interrogation Site Pat Monk Tom Desgroseillier USFWS, Mid-Columbia Fishery Resource Office David Lind, Yakama Nation Fisheries YKFP The project was constructed by the USFWS, with funding and support of the Yakama Nation and Bureau of Reclamation YRBWEP.

My Objective: Be able to monitor fishery restoration efforts in Taneum Creek, and communicate the results to managers and the public. YRBWEP and others have invested significant funding in Taneum Creek restoration, the PIT tag interrogation site is a tool will allow us to monitor results.

Project located at the mouth of the creek on USDOI property, access is through a private road and the hardware is well protected.

Looking upstream at the project location Looking upstream at the project location. The crew is bringing the antennas in to the creek. The antennas are made of 4” PVC pipe, filled with wires and some electronics. The gage station to the right was built by KRD, no longer used, and they allowed us to house electronics in it.

Note the antenna anchored to the substrate with nylon straps and earth anchors.

Looking downstream at the confluence with the Yakima River Looking downstream at the confluence with the Yakima River. There are three antennas between the gage housing and the bridge. Having three will allow biologists to determine direction of fish movements and calculate detection efficiency of the system.

YKFP PIT Tagging Adults at Roza, steelhead and others Juvenile O. mykiss in Taneum Creek, EIT Juvenile coho in Taneum Creek The project takes advantage of existing PIT tagging programs being conducted by the YKFP in Taneum Creek and elsewhere. No new PIT tagging will need to occur to monitor Taneum Creek restoration activities.

PIT Tag reader functional February 19, 2010 Minor tuning by re-winding cables What’s been going on?

The y-axis is the count of tagged fish, the x-axis is the calendar date. The grey line is adult steelhead that were PIT tagged at Roza Dam in the spring of 2010. There other groups are juvenile fish that were tagged in Taneum Creek in the fall of 2008 and 2009, either rainbow/steelhead or coho salmon. Fish started migrating downstream in late April and were still moving steadily as of early June, when the last download of data occurred. Over 550 juvenile coho tagged in 2009 were observed migrating out of the system.

A close up of the previous graph.

Taneum Creek, shown in blue, is quite a bit colder than the Yakima River at Cle Elum (in red) for much of the year. If fish runs become established here they will experience a unique environment. The colder temperatures could cause fish to start smolting and migrating later in the season. When fish passage at Roza Dam is repaired, a PIT tag reader will be included, allowing biologists to better understand the migration timing of various species and stocks.

Estimated Array Efficiency = 88.02%   NA 116 NB 117 NC 124 NABC 88 NBCA 87 NCAB 90 NBC 89 NCA NAB 81 UA 117.3182 UB 118.3448 UC 111.6 Efficiency 0.497175 0.497143 0.526316 Estimated Array Efficiency = 88.02% The detection efficiency of the Taneum Creek site was calculated after a couple of months of operation at 88%, i.e. overall the system detected 88% of the fish that passed over the antennae.

Adult steelhead first date and last date of detection Adult steelhead first date and last date of detection. The date is on the y-axis, while the count is on the x-axis. The blue diamonds are the first date, while the open squares are the last date. The difference between the two points is the number of days fish were in the creek. In some cases the diamond and square are on the same date indicating the fish only spent a few hours in the creek, less than a day.

        How long does it take a steelhead to spawn? Female fish are blue bars, red bars are the males. Total of 62 fish identified by sex, but 8 females and 10 males stayed for zero days and were not considered spawners. Another 5 fish only stayed 1-5 days and may or may not have spawned, a more detailed look at the data may help clarify. The remaining fish, 11 males and 28 females, stayed over 6 days and in some cases for many weeks, and are likely spawners. As of early June we estimated 39 adult steelhead spawners in Taneum Creek.

Summary of wild steelhead movements for 351 steelhead tagged at Roza Dam and tracked to upstream locations between 2002 and 2006 (Reclamation, 2009). Location of Upstream Migration and Presumed Steelhead Spawning Number of Radio-tagged Steelhead Mainstem Yakima River 133 (38.2%) Total Mainstem Spawning 137 (38.8%) Swauk Creek 46 (13.0%) Taneum Creek 17 (4.8%) Cle Elum River 12 (3.4%) Lower Naches River, Umtanum Creek, Cherry/Wilson/Naneum Creeks 6 (1.7%) Total Tributary Spawning 218 (61.8%) In the 2009-2010 steelhead season about 321 adult steelhead were counted passing Prosser Dam. During a study of adult steelhead movements from 2002-2006, a similar number of fish were tagged and followed to the spawning grounds. In that study, which occurred while Bruton Dam was still in place, 17 adult steelhead were found in Taneum Creek, compared to 39 for this year alone. Does this represent an increase in abundance over the recent past? Only time will tell, but it is intriguing information.

Future for Taneum PTIS YRBWEP/USFWS will continue to O&M, budgeted for next 5 years Get cell phone service, connect to PTAGIS Antenna repair, addition? Provide annual report to Reclamation Taneum Ck recovery efforts, keep up with the data! We will continue to O&M the site, I have built that in to my study plan for the next few years at very minor cost, less than $10K annually. USFWS would like to add cell phone service and be able to upload the data to a regional database called PTAGIS. We need to repair one antenna, and are considering adding another to improve detection efficiency. Finally, I am planning to provide an annual report to Reclamation-YRBWEP regarding Taneum Creek recovery efforts.