Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking

1. Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking A Continental scale acoustic array for tracking the life histories of salmon and other species George D. Jackson POST Senior Scientist

2. Current POST array Alaska Vancouver Island Please include a map Willapa Bay Columbia River POST acoustic detection line Snake River

3. 2007 POST Scientific Results • Currently approaching 4 million detections • Ocean rather than freshwater survival is a more immediate problem to salmon smolt survival • Stocks tagged show fairly steady levels of ocean survival among years • Have compared smolt survival in rivers both with and without dams • Can obtain accurate calculation of swimming speed/direction, migration rates and behaviour, and mortality rates in freshwater and on the shelf

4. 2007 Scientific Results Tracking Receiver Modem Vemco VR3 acoustic receiver with underwater modem Flotation collar for permanent line deployment

5. Major trends in migration behaviour Sockeye Steelhead Coho N=597 Rapid vs. intermittent migrators

6. Building up a database of survival

7. POST in the Columbia River Lower Granite Lake Bryan John Day Bonneville Lake Wallula McNary Lake Celilo McGowan’s Channel Snake River Yakima River POST acoustic detection line

8. Tracking migrating smolts from the Columbia Snake Yakima

9. Using POST to measure smolt survival

10. Pressing questions can be addressed http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/pls/erdcpub/docs/erdc/images/johnday1.jpg • Smolts can be tracked seamlessly between freshwater and marine environments • POST provides a valuable tool to assess smolt survival in pristine and dammed rivers • POST can answer critical questions regarding fish migrations • Where is the survival bottleneck? • Smolts can be tracked 100’s km’s in freshwater and 1000’s km on the shelf (Columbia-Alaska) • In the Columbia in 2006 ~$861 million spent on salmon issues-many still unresolved, POST can help answer questions critical to the Columbia

11. Steps Toward Project Synthesis • POST can now provide comparative estimates of freshwater vs. marine smolt survival – not just tracking movement • Ocean mortality is a critical problem facing salmon survival – ocean survival rates of steelhead and coho at extinction levels (southern BC) • Smolt survival down the Columbia River through 8 dams is quite high and comparable or better than smolt survival in the Fraser River without dams • Accurate calculation of swimming speeds and directional movement now available - fast vs. delayed migrators • Expanding the POST array will give us better resolution of marine survival during smolt migration on the shelf and help identify bottlenecks or regions of high mortality that are currently unknown

12. Other species • POST has revealed incredible ocean movements of green sturgeon – Lindley et al. • Numerous stocks interact in different rivers and estuaries • All green sturgeon stocks studied spent time in Columbia R • Move from Sacramento R to the northwest coast of Vancouver Is (sturgeon playground) • Record movement from Sacramento R to Alaska ~2700 km

13. Science Impact • Three major achievements: • Provide a quantitative tool for doing direct experimental tests of hypotheses in the ocean – and through hydrosystems • Developing migration pathways of juvenile salmon (certain stocks have their own highways) • Develop a communication backbone – a telecommunications infrastructure for delivery of a wide range of ocean data • The array can now be used to test long held beliefs on salmon biology and other species (e.g. sturgeon)

14. Societal Impact of Results to Date Societal Impact of Results to Date • Sturgeon research will never be the same!! • POST is addressing intractable Columbia R salmon problems -results challenge long-held assumptions -demonstrate importance of the ocean to salmon -prove hard problems have tractable solutions • Established fisheries agencies are still a challenge -highly conservative -POST needs to demonstrate through example

15. Project Data Available in OBIS • All of POST data from 2004 to last season present on OBIS • POST has a dynamic link to OBIS • OBIS regularly crawls POST data base –changes passed POST→OBIS • POST data are summarised by hour (although number of pings recorded) • 68,510 records • data can be displayed as tracks on the OBIS site with online mapping software (ACON mapper) • links to the POST website for people who want to see every ping • 2007 data yet to be entered into POST data base

16. Education & Outreach • New POST web site • Over 1 million visitors to Vancouver Aquarium have seen POST animation since new Exploration Gallery opened in Oct 2006 where POST video is viewed with other research on high definition flat screen TV • High profile conferences: symposia: AAAS, AFS presentations: PICES, Oceans 2007, MTS/IEEE, OBI, Spain tracking meeting

17. Next Steps2010 • Publish, Publish, Publish • Broader acceptance of POST by user community • Joint geographical expansion and fill-in of POST array lines • Expansion of research program • Work on securing high-level buy-in to make POST sustainable

18. Limits to Knowledge • $100m USA, $25m Canada spent annually on salmon hatcheries -do hatcheries help or hurt? -what role do rearing, disease or genetics play? -POST can assess by direct experimental tests in the ocean • Commercial fisheries: $100m+ lost from shutting down fisheries to protect endangered sockeye stocks - POST can distinguish run times between fished and endangered stocks -Real-time POST data could protect weak stocks • Open ocean continues to be a challenge beyond the POST arena -OTN technology developments will help (New OTN geolocation tag → download open ocean data to new generation POST receiver)