Symposia Abstracts
Symposia Title: Addressing Aquatic Organism Passage - Challenges, Responsibilities, Opportunities and Examples
- Organizers: Justin Jimenez, USFS Northern Region Aquatic Ecologist, justin.jimenez@usda.gov, Sharmila Premdas Jepsen, BLM Lead Fisheries Biologist and Aquatic Invasive Species Coordinator, spremdas@blm.gov, and Shane Scott, SSA Environmental LLC, 4719 NE Salmon Creek St., Vancouver, WA 98686, Phone: (360) 601-2391, shane@sscottandassociates.com,
Website: https://ssaenvironmental.com - Symposia Length: Half day session = 10-12 talks to a full day
- Abstract: Ensuring adequate aquatic organism passage (AOP) is a ubiquitous challenge in fisheries management. Fisheries professionals and organizations responsible for fisheries management need to work collectively to ensure it is addressed holistically and ecologically. Socially, we also need to address the challenge to prove that the cost/benefit ratio is worth investing in for fish, people, and communities. This symposium will share examples of projects and programs focusing on AOP restoration or improvement. In addition to aquatic organism passage, symposium presentations will address culvert replacement, repair and/or rehabilitation, stream simulation, barrier inventories and prioritization tools, climate resiliency, costs, funding as well as partnerships.
Symposia Title: Instream Flow and Water Level Protection: A Look In the Past, Current Programs and the Future
- Organizers: Tom Bassista-Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Instream Flow Council Regional Director (Region 1)
- Symposia Length: Propose 1 time block = 5 talks
- Abstract: The protection of instream flow and water levels in lakes and reservoirs is a critical component for healthy fisheries. Post World War II construction and development of reservoirs, highways, bridges, subdivisions, agriculture and forestry all contributed to a need for better streamflow and water level recommendations and management. However, it was not until 1995 when the National Instream Flow Program Assessment project was formed which culminated in the formation of the Instream Flow Council (IFC) in 1998. The IFC’s mission is to improve the effectiveness of instream flow and water level programs for conserving aquatic resources. Throughout the Nation and Canadian Provinces there are varied instream flow and water level programs. To this day it is still critical to engage stakeholders at all levels to recommend instream flow and water levels commensurate with healthy fish populations. This session ((1 time block = 5 talks) will focus on the history of instream flow and water level protection, showcase a few programs from around the western US and conclude with an update on both the ambitious efforts of the IFC and AFS to Establish a new Instream Flow and Water Level Conservation Center. It is critical to understand our past, examine what is working and help carve a path forward for future biologist and managers to protect and enhance our fishery resources through ecologically driven instream flow and water level recommendations.
Symposia Title: Filling the Void: Expanding Anadromous Fish into Historical Habitat through Hatcheries, Barrier Removals, and Reintroduction
- Organizers: Marika Dobos, Anadromous Fisheries Staff Biologist, Idaho Department of Fish and Wildlife, marika.dobos@idfg.idaho.gov; Sammy Matsaw, Research Biologist, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, smatsaw@sbtribes.com.
- Symposia Length: Full-day session
- Abstract: Anadromous fish species across the west coast have exhibited precipitous declines and extirpation from historic habitats. Factors of declines or extirpation include loss of habitat due to land and water use practices, construction of dams or other man-made barriers, and urbanization. Billions of dollars have been invested to improve fish passage and habitat, as a means to improve fish returns. The symposium highlights innovative practices that improved imperiled stocks, reintroduction of fish into basins where anadromous fish were historically extirpated, and large-scale barrier removals that opened watersheds back up to anadromous life history. As these opportunities will continue in the future this is an opportunity to share success and challenges to help guide ongoing or future projects.
Symposia Title: The Integration of Fish Habitat Design and Monitoring Response
- Organizers: Jeanne McFall, jeanne@rivhab.net, 208-401-6129
- Symposia Length: Full Day
- Abstract: Design methodology to improve quantity and quality of fish habitat has evolved significantly in the past 15 years. This evolution is largely due to technological advances in monitoring both biological and physical aspects. Empirical data provides feedback into design methods allowing adaptive engineering and improved biological and physical response. Accuracy of achieving targeted conditions is improved using advancements in monitoring, which becomes more critical with threats of climate change. We invite presentations exploring fish habitat design incorporating monitoring feedback. Examples of using empirical data to steer design, technological advances of physical monitoring including drone technology, and the use of monitoring data to improve habitat designs are all welcome.
Symposia Title: Free Round of PBR: The Future for Research, Monitoring, and Implementation of Process-Based Restoration
- Organizers: Brian Hodge, brian.hodge@tu.org, Daniel Dauwalter, Helen Neville, Caroline Nash, Scott Miller, and Matthew Steinwurtzel
- Symposia Length: Full Day
- Abstract: Process-based restoration (PBR) has garnered a great deal of interest across the West and PBR tactics (e.g., beaver mimicry) are being implemented with increasing frequency in hopes of reinstating processes considered central to riverscape health. The rapid expansion of PBR is generating new insights and opportunities but also revealing new challenges for those charged with managing and conserving aquatic ecosystems. For instance, how does restoring beaver-related processes influence sediment storage, streamflow, and stream temperature, and what are the implications for fish? Could beaver dams or their analogs have the unintended consequence of restricting fish movement or of favoring invasive fishes and pathogens? Answers to such questions are still few in number, and underlying these questions is a potential divergence between managing for ecosystem services and managing for individual species. Deliberate monitoring, data collection, and reporting will improve our abilities to manage adaptively and predict the effects of PBR on riverscapes and the fishes therein. This symposium will bring together managers, scientists, and practitioners to make sense of a shifting landscape and discuss how best to navigate emergent and potentially competing priorities. Presenters will reveal recent insights and recommend avenues for future research on the efficacy and complexity of process-based restoration.
Symposia Title: NOAA’s Habitat Restoration Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: Lessons Learned From Funded Projects and Upcoming Opportunities.
- Organizers: Larissa Lee (NOAA Fisheries, Restoration Center), larissa.lee@noaa.gov, 206-503-0668; Laurel Jennings (NOAA Fisheries, Restoration Center)
- Symposia Length: 1 time block (5-6 talks)
- Abstract: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for NOAA and partners to continue making an impact for fisheries, threatened and endangered species, and coastal communities. The BIL provides roughly $3 billion over 5 years for NOAA, with significant funding available for habitat restoration, conservation, and resilience efforts. This symposium will begin by highlighting the funding being made available through competitive grant opportunities managed by NOAA and the projects that were funded in the first year of those competitions. This includes funding opportunities and projects for fish passage restoration and hydrologic reconnection. We then invite partners who have received BIL funds to share what they will be able to accomplish with these first round of funds, lessons learned so far, and provide further detail or insight about their projects and what this BIL funding means for their work. We will conclude with a discussion of NOAA’s upcoming opportunities for funding and support.
https://www.noaa.gov/infrastructure-law
Symposia Title: Non-permanent Rivers and Streams in the Western USA
- Organizers: Bob Hughes, hughes.bob@amnisopes.com
- Symposia Length: Half day
- Abstract: Non-permanent rivers and streams comprise 79% of USA stream networks and they provide important habitat, ecological functions, and fisheries for downstream rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. Commercial and recreational fisheries, which are dependent on non-permanent streams, are important for local and regional economies. Many of the 33% of streams in the conterminous western USA mapped as perennial were found to be intermittent or ephemeral. Impairment, loss, or destruction of non-permanent streams under a weak Waters of the U.S. Rule will have severe and long-lasting negative consequences for aquatic ecosystems, fish& fisheries throughout the western U.S. Therefore, this session is intended to highlight some of the values and threats to western U.S. non-permanent rivers and streams.
- What are non-perennial waters and why should we care? An introduction to the session.
Author: Leanne Roulson, Past-President, American Fisheries Society. lroulson@fisheries.org - Climate change is contracting and drying river networks: a case study at the HJ Andrews (Western Cascades, Oregon, USA).
Author: Adam Ward, Oregon State University. adam.ward@oregonstate.edu - Towards refugia: identifying areas of species' persistence in the face of warming & drying.
Author: Niall Clancy, Wyoming Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit. Niall.Clancy@uwyo.edu - Accessing modeled representation of no- and low-streamflow in the Pacific Northwest.
Authors: Adam Price, University of Washington & Kendra Kaiser, Boise State University. adnprice@uw.edu - A data integration framework to identify and model surface water in small streams.
Authors: Konrad Hafen, Nate Chelgren, Brandon Overstreet, Jason Dunham, Emily Heaston. khafen@usgs.gov - Benthic community structure and function are altered by longevity of stream intermittency.
Author: Rob Plotnikoff. Snohomish County, Washington. Robert.Plotnikoff@co.snohomish.wa.us - Evaluating the effects of intermittent flow on the resilience and vulnerability of fish assemblage structure.
Authors: Cienna Hanson & Jane Rogosch, Texas Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit. cihanson@ttu.edu - Non-permanent streams in the Colorado River Basin insulate against hybridization in catostomid species.
Author: Zach Hooley-Underwood, Colorado Parks & Wildlife. zachary.hooley-underwood@state.co.us - Which waters are WOTUS? 40+ years of protections for temporary streams at the margins of the US Clean Water Act.
Author: Adam Ward, Oregon State University. adam.ward@oregonstate.edu
Symposia Title: Bull Trout Genetic Considerations for Management and Conservation
- Organizers: Brett Bowersox, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, brett.bowersox@idfg.idaho.gov; John Hargrove, Idaho Department of Fish and Game / Pacific State Marine Fisheries Commission,john.hargrove@idfg.idaho.gov
- Symposia Length: Half day
- Abstract: Bull Trout are widely distributed across the Pacific Northwest and Canada with the species utilizing a variety of aquatic ecosystems and multiple life history strategies across the range. Genetic representation of this diversity is also complex with two central lineages (coastal and interior) expressed by the species, but significant genetic differentiation present on finer spatial scales compared to other Pacific salmonid species. While the genetic structure of Bull Trout across the listed portion of the species range in the United States has been previously described, advances in genetic techniques provide opportunity to ask more refined management and conservation questions for the species. Genetic monitoring can address key questions such as abundance monitoring, small population genetic resilience, interactions with non-natives fishes, and genetic implications of life history diversity. Presentations in this symposium will highlight ongoing genetic evaluations and the management application of these evaluations to address data gaps with the species.
Symposia Title: Forward-looking Science and Stewardship of Large River Systems
- Organizers: Jonathan Moore, jwmoore@sfu.ca; Jonny Armstrong,Jonathan.armstrong@oregonstate.edu
- Symposia Length: Half day 10-12 talks
- Abstract: Large river systems and their fishes are rapidly shifting due to climate change and other anthropogenic drivers. From retreating glaciers to warming river temperatures to rising sea-levels in estuaries to removing large dams, we are in an era of major transformation of large and connected river systems. There is in an urgent need for science to be forward-looking in order to inform proactive stewardship of these systems. In this symposium, we invite talks that illuminate how fishes and large river systems are coping with change, predict how these systems may change in the future, consider potential policy levers for action, and implement proactive conservation options. Presentations are particularly encouraged that link science to policy and action, and that consider diverse ways of thinking on forward-looking watershed stewardship. Collectively, we hope that this symposium would showcase different approaches and ideas that connect to on-the-ground efforts to foster resilience in this era of rapid change.
Symposia Title: Western Native Fishes Symposium
- Organizers:Timothy D’Amico, Idaho Fish and Game, Nampa, ID, 208-854-8987, timothy.damico@idfg.idaho.gov; Luke Schultz, Wyoming Game and Fish, Pinedale, WY, luke.schultz@wyo.gov
- Symposia Length: Half day 10-12 talks
- Abstract: Native fishes research and management often faces boundaries, both anthropogenic and natural. Our goal for the eighth-annual native fishes symposium hosted by the Western Native Fishes Committee is to provide an opportunity for those interested in native fishes to cross boundaries and meet at the intersection of native fishes. We encourage presentations that cross boundaries, both anthropogenic (e.g. multiple jurisdictions, cross-border collaborations) and natural (e.g. confluences, riparian-aquatic interfaces). In keeping with the mission of the Western Native Fishes Committee to provide a network for people with an interest and/or expertise in native fishes, this symposium will allow presenters to offer insights into diverse management approaches, concepts and constraints to native fish conservation across regions of North America.
Symposia Title: Applying Research in Hatcheries
- Organizers:: Riley Brown rbrown@idahopower.com (208-859-6730); Eric Pankau pankauer@sd25.us; Thomas Lindenmuth Thomas.lindenmuth@idfg.idaho.gov
- Symposia Length: Full day
- Abstract: Fisheries research can play a vital role in the optimization and evaluation of fish culture programs, but there is often a disconnect between researchers and hatchery operators that can lead to stagnation and unachieved goals. This symposium will focus on the positive impact that research can have on hatchery programs and its importance in ensuring that artificial propagation is being utilized correctly in the manner of which it is needed. Speakers from both fisheries research and hatchery management will emphasize the collaboration needed to overcome obstacles and achieve programmatic goals, as well as provide case studies of research implementation into hatchery programs from around the Western United States.
Symposia Title: The Future of the Western Division of AFS: Research from Throughout the West
- Organizers:: Eric Fetherman, Western Division of AFS, eric.fetherman@state.co.us
- Symposia Length: Half day 10-12 talks
- Abstract: The Western Division of the American Fisheries Society contains ten chapters (Arizona/New Mexico, Alaska, California/Nevada, Colorado/Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Pacific Islands, Utah, and Washington/British Columbia), each having a diverse range of students and professionals conducting a wide variety of research. This symposium will highlight the research being conducted within each of the Chapters throughout the Western Division as we start shifting baselines and moving towards the future of the fisheries profession. The Western Division invites you to come support your fellow students and professionals, and learn something new about the unique fisheries work being conducted throughout the west.
Information and Assistance
If you have any questions about the symposia, contact Mike Peterson for answers.