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workshop, collectively referred to as “Propagated Fishes in Resource Management (PFIRM).” Each of the previous cycles yielded a proceedings book (Fish Culture in Fisheries Management [Stroud 1986], Uses and Effects of Cultured Fishes in Aquatic Ecosystems [Schramm and Piper 1995], and Propagated Fishes in Resource Management [Nickum et al. 2004]), and most recently a guidance document, “Considerations for the Use of Propagated Fishes in Resource Management.” The so-called “PFIRM Considerations” guide, published by AFS in 2005 (Mudrak and Carmichael 2005), provided resource managers with general recommendations for decision making and bilitation, and restoration programs.

In recent years, returns of adult sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka to the Columbia River Basin have reached numbers not observed since the 1950s. To understand factors related to these increased returns, we first looked for changes in freshwater production and survival of juvenile migrants. We then evaluated productivity changes by estimating smolt-to-adult return rates (SAR) for juvenile migration years 1985–2010. We found SAR varied between 0.2 and 23.5%, with the highest values coinciding with recent large adult returns. However, the largest adult return, in 2012, resulted not from increased survival, but from increased smolt production. We evaluated 19 different variables that could influence SARs, representing different facets of freshwater and ocean conditions. We used model selection criteria based on small-sample corrected AIC to evaluate the relative performance of all two- and three-variable models. The model with April upwelling, Pacific Northwest Index (PNI) in the migration year, and PNI in the year before migration had 10 times the AICc weight as the second-best-supported model, and R2 = 0.82. The variables of April ocean upwelling and PNI in the migration year had high weights of 0.996 and 0.927, respectively, indicating they were by far the best of the candidate variables to explain variations in SAR. While our analyses were primarily correlative and limited by the type and amount of data currently available, changes in ocean conditions in the northern California Current system, as captured by April upwelling and PNI, appeared to play a large role in the variability of SAR.

New hatchery management strategies in the Columbia River Basin focus on conservation of naturally spawning populations as an equal priority to providing fish for harvest—a difficult halance to achieve. The Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG) assessed 178 hatchery programs and 351 salmonid populations to determine how to achieve managers’ goals for conservation and sustainable fisheries. Modeling determined the best strategy, using an approach based on best available science, goal identification, scientific defensibility, and adaptive management to refocus from an aquaculture paradigm to a renewable natural resource paradigm. We concluded that hatcheries and natural populations must be managed with the same biological principles. HSRG solutions improved the conservation status of many populations (25% for steelhead trout, more than 70% for Chinook and coho salmons) while also providing increased harvest. Natural-origin steelhead trout and coho salmon spawners increased by 6,000 to 10,000; Chin...

Hatcheries support nearly all major fisheries for Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) and steel-head (anadromous O. mykiss) in the Pacific Northwest. However, hatcheries have been a major source of controversy for over 30 years. The Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG) was tasked by Congress to identify solutions to well-known problems so hatcheries could better meet their goals of supporting sustainable fisheries and assisting with the conservation of natural populations. We reviewed over 100 facilities and 200 programs and identified three principles of hatchery reform: (1) goals for each program must be explicitly stated in terms of desired benefits and purposes; (2) programs must be scientifically defensible; and (3) hatchery programs must respond adaptively to new information. We also identified several emerging issues critical to the success of hatcheries. We concluded that hatcheries must operate in new modes with increased scientific oversight and that they cannot meet their goals witho...