The Salmon River Basin
Background
A habitat action Effectiveness Monitoring program has been designed to evaluate the effects of ongoing habitat actions on the abundance, productivity, condition, and distribution of anadromous and resident salmonids in the Salmon and Lemhi River basins.
These projects use a stage-based model that views fish survival as a function of habitat quality and quantity. The model is populated using GIS or satellite based land cover data and empirical habitat measures to evaluate the effectiveness of ongoing habitat actions. Results will serve as a predictive function in the identification and prioritization of future actions.
A proposal for is currently being developed for Status and Trend monitoring in 2007 of salmon and Steelhead populations throughout the South Fork Salmon River watershed. Long term records and ongoing habitat and fish population monitoring projects by the Nez Perce tribe, Idaho Fish and Game, and the U.S. Forest Service provide a solid background for studies in this area.
Project goals
There are three project goals specifically addressed within the ISEMP Salmon pilot project:
- Implement a habitat status and trend monitoring design, with fixed (trend) and random (status) sampling characteristics.
- Develop a statistical framework to enable precision estimates for historic time series data that lack variance estimators.
- Develop statistical relationships between old, current, and new monitoring technologies.
Sub projects within the basin
- Lemhi Habitat Action Plan
- South Fork Salmon River salmon and steelhead abundance and productivity Status and Trend monitoring
- Comparison of old and new technologies for determining fish abundance
Collaborators
Bureau of Reclamation
Idaho Department of Water Resources
Nez Perce Tribe
Shoshone-Bannock Tribe
USDA Forest Service
US Fish and Wildlife Service
US Geological Survey