Planning and Management Efforts
Recovery of the GOM DPS requires coordinating conservation planning and management efforts across the DPS. This recovery plan provides guidelines to achieve recovery and is based on the Framework agencies’ year-to-year actions combined with important ongoing stakeholder actions. In addition, this plan identifies other priority actions that are not currently funded. In the section below, we provide brief overviews of ongoing conservation planning and management efforts across the DPS.
The Atlantic Salmon Recovery Framework
Hatchery Biosecurity Plan to Control Disease
Statement of Cooperation
Upon listing Atlantic salmon as endangered in 2000, both the USFWS and NOAA shared jurisdiction in fulfilling the agencies’ obligations under the ESA. This shared jurisdiction allowed the agencies to share existing resources and expertise in implementing recovery efforts for Atlantic salmon. Over time though, the Services recognized that there were many aspects of the joint authority that resulted in confusion, inefficiencies, and delays. To address these issues, the Services developed a statement of cooperation in 2006 with amendments made in 2009. These amendments more clearly delineated roles and responsibilities, with the USFWS focusing efforts within freshwater and NOAA focusing efforts on the estuary and marine environment. In addition, NOAA is responsible for section 7 compliance for dams.
The Atlantic Salmon Recovery Framework
The Services, MDMR, and PIN established a clear governance structure for Atlantic salmon management in the GOM DPS to provide a recovery strategy that covers the responsibilities and resources of these four groups until a new recovery plan could be completed. For the interim, the Framework provided goals, a strategic approach, and a governance structure for the agencies’ portion of the effort to recover the GOM DPS (Long et al. 2012). The Framework prioritized the agencies’ funding and management actions and ensured that the effects of recovery actions on Atlantic salmon would be quantified through targeted assessment. The governance structure more clearly identified roles and responsibilities of the agencies as conservation partners. We're continuing to use the governance structure as it more clearly defines roles and responsibilities. The Framework was implemented through seven action teams (ATs), which we are carrying forward under the new Recovery Plan. These teams include the Marine and Estuary Action Team, Genetic Diversity Action Team, Conservation Hatchery Action Team, Freshwater Action Team, Connectivity Action Team, Outreach and Education Action Team, and Stock Assessment Action Team. The Stock Assessment Action Team was established to provide scientific review of action team actions and results.
The action teams’ strategies, objectives, and metrics were as follows.
Marine and Estuary Action Team (MEAT)
Strategy: Increase marine and estuarine survival of Atlantic salmon.
Metric: Increased understanding of the factors limiting marine and estuarine survival of Atlantic salmon and the implementation of adaptive management actions to increase survival in these environments when appropriate.
Genetic Diversity Action Team (GDAT)
Strategy: Maintain genetic diversity of Atlantic salmon populations over time.
Metric: Estimates of genetic diversity (e.g., allelic variation, heterozygosity), based on comparable suites of molecular markers, to be assessed and monitored over time.
Conservation Hatchery Action Team (CHAT)
Strategy: Increase adult spawners through the conservation hatchery program.
Metric: Adult return per egg equivalent, reported by SHRU.
Freshwater Action Team (FWAT)
Strategy: Increase adult spawners through the freshwater production of smolts.
Metrics: Population estimates of smolt production at index rivers: Catch-per-unit-effort of large parr based on a stratified random sampling design; Distribution and abundance of redds; Counts of wild adult returns at index rivers.
Connectivity Action Team (CAT)
Strategy: Enhance connectivity between the ocean and freshwater habitats important for salmon recovery.
Objective: Provide full access to 30,000 HUs with a score of 2 or 3 in each of the 3 SHRUS: Merrymeeting Bay, Penobscot, and Downeast.
Metrics: Number of accessible HUs with a habitat quality score of 2 or 3 in the Merrymeeting Bay, Penobscot, and Downeast SHRUs.
Outreach and Education Action Team
Strategy: Build awareness and engagement of the key audiences and members of the public through outreach, communications, and education.
Objective: Help the State, Federal, Tribal, NGO, and other stakeholders engaged in Atlantic salmon recovery activities continue to make coordinated strategic investments in education and outreach toward our shared goals of salmon recovery as outlined in this recovery plan.
Stock Assessment Action Team
Strategy: Assess the status and trends of the GOM DPS and assess specific Framework actions.
Metrics: Adult returns index from trap counts and redd-based estimates; Percent of conservation spawning escapement by SHRU; Population viability analysis with data updated annually; Replacement rate and 5-year geometric mean greater than 1 Percent of naturally reared adult returns; Spawning area saturation index; Large parr production index; Smolt production index; Overwinter survival estimate; Dam passage; Telemetry-based coastal survival rate; Marine survival of hatchery and naturally reared smolts.
2008 Strategic Plan for the Restoration of the Diadromous Fishes to the Penobscot River (Strategic Plan)
The Strategic Plan (MDMR and MDIFW 2008) was written by the MDMR and the MDIFW, reviewed by the Penobscot Indian Nation and the Federal agencies, and includes the Penobscot River Restoration Trust, PPL, researchers and other State and Federal agencies and stakeholders with an interest in the basin. The goal of the strategic plan is to restore the Penobscot River and help guide the management of the 12 diadromous fish populations, the other aquatic resources, and the ecosystems on which they depend for their intrinsic, ecological, economic, recreational, scientific, and educational values. The strategic plan includes four goals:
- Coordinate fisheries management and restoration activities among State and Federal fisheries agencies, PIN, and stakeholders and develop criteria to address management differences that strike an appropriate balance in fish community structure compatible with individual agency and stakeholder objectives.
- Provide safe and effective upstream and downstream passage for diadromous fishes at barriers that restrict access between their historical habitat in the Penobscot basin and the ocean.
- Restore and maintain a healthy aquatic ecosystem that conserves native biodiversity, manages or prevents the invasion of nonnative aquatic species, increases the natural recruitment of fish, and improves aquatic habitat.
- Rebuild sustainable fish populations, manage populations of native and naturalized aquatic species, reduce populations of nonnative undesirable species, and maintain and enhance fishing opportunities using adaptive management principles.
An interagency technical committee also developed an operational plan (MDMR and DIFW 2009), that details specific actions to accomplish the strategic plan’s objectives. The strategic plan has a 25-year time frame.
International Efforts
The North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) was formed under the Convention for the Conservation of Salmon in the North Atlantic Ocean (Convention). The NASCO is charged with the international management of Atlantic salmon stocks on the high seas. Currently, at-sea harvest of U.S. Atlantic salmon is limited to an internal-use fishery in West Greenland and a fishery at St. Pierre and Miquelon. Through multiparty negotiations, this organization continues to significantly limit the number of adult GOM DPS Atlantic salmon taken in international waters.
In addition, NASCO serves an important role in international cooperation and collaboration to advance rational management of Atlantic salmon stocks within the Convention area. This involves developing agreements, such as the Williamsburg Resolution, for aquaculture and related activities, and guidance documents related to management of fisheries and habitat. Recently, NASCO has highlighted these suggested best practices in a series of documents summarizing these guidelines that are available through NASCO’s Web site (www.nasco.int) or by contacting the NASCO Secretariat. Of particular note is the best management practice (BMP) guidance related to containment of aquaculture fish and management of sea lice that were mutually agreed to by all NASCO parties and the International Salmon Farmers Association (ISFA). In short, the international goals of this BMP guidance are
- 100 percent of farms to have effective sea lice management so there is no increase in sea lice loads or lice-induced mortality of wild salmonids attributable to the farms; and
- 100 percent farmed fish to be retained in all production facilities.
For NASCO, ICES provides scientific support to help inform NASCO’s management decisions as they relate to Atlantic salmon. The ICES is an international organization that coordinates marine research in the North Atlantic and provides scientific advice to government and international regulatory bodies that manage the north Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas.
Hatchery Biosecurity Plan to Control Disease
Federal and State-managed hatcheries and programs have stringent biosecurity plans in place to prevent the spread of pathogens between river systems. Hatchery biosecurity plans outline disinfection and fish-handling procedures for preventing the introduction of pathogens from wild broodstock, process water sources, and other facilities. In addition to biosecurity plans, both Federal facilities are in the process of developing hazard analysis critical control point plans (HACCPs), which are designed to identify the activities and processes that pose the greatest risk of incoming or outgoing pathogens and strategies to mitigate risk (USFWS 1999).
Broodstock Management Plan
The broodstock management plan (Bartron et al. 2006) addresses hatchery operations at Craig Brook NFH and Green Lake NFH, with the goal of maintaining genetic diversity in the river-specific GOM DPS populations. The use of hatcheries to maintain captive populations increases the risk of losing genetic variation, increases potential for inbreeding especially as population sizes decline or are maintained at low numbers, and increases the potential for artificial selection and domestication of the maintained populations. To minimize these risks, the broodstock management plan addresses hatchery operations, broodstock collection and distribution, spawning activities, broodstock maintenance, and screening for potential aquaculture-origin individuals, and implements a monitoring program to assess estimates of genetic diversity within each broodstock.
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