year or two. In contrast, the number of adults produced can only be measured after the return of up to 

 five year classes in the case of Chinook salmon. 



The Council, however, has consistently rejected using juvenile measurements in favor of adult 

 production or returns as a final measure of program benefits. This is because an evaluation based 

 solely on the production of juvenile fish fosters the fragmented approach to management that has 

 plagued past efforts to restore the fishery and does not provide a systemwide perspective on program 

 effectSc 



Another difficulty with using juvenile counts to monitor the program is that they only tell part of the 

 story in regard to the influence of the program on salmon and steelhead production. Several actions in 

 the fish and wildlife program address the survival of adult fish. In addition, program actions can affect 

 the survivability of smolts beyond the point where direct Council influence stops. Hatchery practices 

 and mainstem passage conditions, for instance, can influence the quality and survival of smolts 

 reaching the ocean. Doubling the number of smolts below Bonneville that are of poor quality and with 

 little potential for return will not achieve the Council's goal. 



Monitoring the smolt outmigration also has major logistical difficulties. Potentially, the population 

 of smolts outmigrating from above Bonneville Dam could be determined by a population estimate at 

 the dam itself. However, there is presently no reliable method for estimating the smolt population size 

 at any of the mainstem hydroelectric projects. Also, there is presently no technique available to 

 estimate smolt population size from tributaries below Bonneville Dam. Development of techniques for 

 estimating the smolt population both above and below Bonneville Dam would be a difficult and 

 expensive endeavor. 



An alternative to estimating the size of the outmigrating population might be to rely on changes in 

 various smolt migration indices as an index of program progress. A number of these indices are 

 presently collected by the Fish Passage Center operated by the fishery agencies and tribes. Because 

 the information is collected routinely, this could offer a low cost, and at the present time the only, 

 possibility for measuring progress in terms of the size of the smolt outmigration. However, to be a 

 suitable measure of progress, an index must have a consist, although probably unknown, relation to 

 the size of the outmigrant population. At the present time, there is considerable doubt regarding the 

 consistent relationship between existing smolt indices and the population size (see various annual 

 reports from the Smolt Monitoring Program of the Fish Passage Center). 



Adult counts . The primary advantage of using adult counts to evaluate the program is that they 

 represent the "bottom line" in regard to the actual effect of the Council's efforts to restore the salmon 

 and steelhead resource. Thus intuitively, adult counts may have the greatest appeal as a measure of 

 program effects. 



By far the easiest and least expensive method for monitoring the program in terms of adults 

 would be to track the number of adult fish returning to the mouth of the Columbia River. For fish 

 produced above Bonneville Dam, this would entail adding the number of fish counted at Bonneville to 

 an estimate of the number caught or killed between the dam and the mouth of the Columbia River. 

 Similarly, for fish produced below Bonneville, the estimate of loss below Bonneville would be added to 

 the estimates of return to the individual subbasins. The Corps of Engineers and the fishery 

 management agencies routinely collect this information, and no additional cost would be involved. 



While simplicity is the greatest virtue of this approach, it is also its greatest drawback. An 

 evaluation limited to adult returns to the river would have little ability to separate out program affects 

 from all other factors affecting returns such as harvest and natural survival rates. Success or failure in 

 achieving the doubling goal could not be attributed to the effect of the program. Very little would be 



