Water Quality - Monitoring the migrations of wild Snake River spring/summer Chinook salmon juveniles

This is an ongoing Bonneville Power Administration funded project to annually collect, PIT tag, and release wild Chinook salmon parr in up to 15 streams of the Salmon River drainage in Idaho and subsequently monitor these fish through in-stream monitoring sites and downstream dams. The overall study objectives are to assess the migrational characteristics and estimate parr-to-smolt survival for Snake River wild spring/summer Chinook salmon smolts at Lower Granite Dam, characterize parr and smolt survival and movement out of natal rearing areas of selected streams and examine the relationships between fish movement, environmental conditions within the streams, and weather and climate data. This project also collects parr-to-smolt growth information on previously PIT-tagged wild Chinook salmon parr at the Lower Granite Dam sort-by-code PIT detection system each spring. A goal of this study is to characterize run-timing of wild fish to determine if consistent patterns are apparent and to provide daily information for real-time management decisions during the smolt out-migrations.

Up to 6 water quality parameters collected hourly in 16 streams of the Salmon River basin in Idaho.