>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Justin Gould, left, cleans debris from the “wings’’ of the picket weir, which direct the fish traveling either up or down the stream into the square trap. Neal Meshell prepares to retrieve an adult female steelhead that is traveling downstream after spawning. Photo/RON OSTERLOH

From earliest times, the occupants of the Wallowa Valley have thrived on the gifts that nature has provided for them. Since the travelers of the Oregon Trail began settling Eastern Oregon, these resources have been claimed, used, over-used and struggled over.

To the Nez Perce Tribe, original stewards of the Wallowa Valley, the preservation and conservation of these natural resources is vital to their way of life and to the future of the tribe. Since 1994 the tribe has taken a lead role — with the cooperation of the Forest Service, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Bonneville Power Administration, Bureau of Land Management, private landowners and various other organizations — to provide vital information to re-establish the salmon and steelhead and the habitat critical to their survival.

The once-abundant salmon and steelhead runs have declined in recent history to critical levels due to a variety of reasons.

The Nez Perce Tribe Department of Fisheries Resources Management is headquartered in Lapwai, Idaho, with several field offices, including one in Enterprise. The department is comprised of seven divisions: Administration, Harvest, Enforcement Production, Research, Watershed and Resident Fish. It maintains the health of a 13-million-acre watershed and strives to improve survival rates of salmon and steelhead in the tributaries of the Columbia River.

The department implements and assesses fish recovery plans, monitors populations and provides input on Endangered Species Act issues.

The Imnaha River Smolt Monitoring Project is an ongoing effort to assess spring out-migration timing, total travel time and survival rate of wild and hatchery juvenile steelhead from the Imnaha River to the dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.

To gather this information, highly trained biologists and technicians using the latest technological equipment camp out in some of the same places where tribal ancestors built pit houses, lived and celebrated the migration of the salmon and steelhead.

A rotary screw trap is situated at the bridge over the Imnaha River near Cow Creek on property owned by the McClaran family in the Imnaha Canyon. Research project leader Jim Harbeck of Enterprise said very few if any of the tribes’ projects would be possible without the permission of private landowners throughout the county.

The screw trap is a metal cone positioned horizontally in the river. It has rotating panels inside that scoop up water and approximately 15 percent of the migrating Chinook and steelhead smolts.

The fish are funneled to a tube that outlets into a “live box.” The fish are then taken to a water-filled holding tank equipped with a bubbler to supply oxygen to the captured fish. They are given a mild anesthetic to reduce the stress caused by handling and a buffer is added to the water for additional protection from accidental injury.

Two crews of five technicians and biologists work two shifts. Since the fish move at night, most of the work is done from dark to 2 a.m. and from 2 a.m. to daylight. Among the crew members are technicians Neil Meshell, Justin Gould and Derek Evans and lead technicians Joe McCormick and Dave Bright.

A passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag is implanted in each captured fish. The PIT tag is a tiny computer chip that allows information such as gender, origin, measurements and an individualized identification number to be collected and recorded on each fish as it out-migrates. The young fish are put in a holding tank to recover and are eventually returned to the river.

The hydroelectric dams the fish pass through have antennae that detect the PIT tag and more data is collected and recorded. When the smolts are detected at Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River, flow adjustments can be made based on the number of fish.

Decisions by BPA regarding flow, spill and river traffic levels are based on data from the PIT tags of this and other similar projects throughout Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana.

Data is uploaded daily and processed at the Fish Passage Center. The data can be accessed by ODFW and other agencies to answer questions and make policy decisions.

Computers with Internet access available at the Forest Service Guard Station at Thorn Creek, where the crew is housed, are powered by solar energy from three panels on the roof of the cabin. The system, designed and implemented by Joe McCormick of Enterprise, lead technician for the Nez Perce Tribal Fisheries, has increased the efficiency and effectiveness of the project.

In the past, information had to be driven twice a week from the collection site out to the fisheries administration building in Enterprise, a four-hour round trip.

McCormick also designed a solar energy generation system at the data collection site in the wall tent at the Cow Creek Bridge.

“We used to run this equipment with gasoline-powered generators,’’ said Dave Bright, a technician. “With the solar we have no gas, no noise and much less impact on the environment. We don’t need much power down here and this system works great.”

Horse Creek is another important tributary for steelhead reproduction on the Imnaha River. A “picket weir” has been constructed there similar to the traditional Nez Perce fish trap. Picket fence-like panels in the creek direct the fish into a funnel-shaped box as they travel upstream to spawn or as they swim back toward the river after spawning.

This trap is checked daily. If fish have been captured, technicians pull them out with a net and they are kept in a small holding tank while information is gathered. The fish, called kelts after they’ve spawned, are scanned with a metal detector to search for a PIT tag or a coded wire tag, which would identify it as a hatchery fish.

Researchers are interested in learning how hatchery fish and wild fish compare and perform. Is the migratory timing the same for both? Are the gender ratios the same? Is the reproductive success rate the same?

Samples of tissue from the gill plate are taken and preserved for genetic analysis. This is another way of tracking the origins and life history of the fish. Scale samples are also taken for later analysis.

McCormick said scales can reveal migration patterns and behaviors from growth rings that form on the scales.

“Fish grow faster in the ocean than in the cold mountain streams. From these samples we can tell where they reared and how old they are,” he said.

After the captured kelt is measured from mid-eye to the last vertebrae and from the nose to the fork of the tail, a numbered plastic Tyvek tag is attached to the gill plate and the fish is placed in a holding tank to recover, and then is released back into the stream below the weir.

All this information is recorded and fed into the computer to document migration trends of salmon and steelhead out of the Imnaha River. In June the picket weir is removed from Horse Creek and stored. Harbeck said  it could be left in the stream but every effort is made to lower the impact of these activities on the environment.

Camp Creek, a tributary of Big Sheep Creek about a mile upriver from the town of Imnaha, is important to steelhead reproduction for several reasons. This stream is mostly spring fed so the water flow is more stable than snow-melt fed streams. Because it is spring-fed, the water is less turbid and detecting redds, places in the stream bed where the fertilized eggs wait to hatch, is easier.

Camp Creek is the location of a device called a “resistivity weir.” This is one of only two such devices in operation in the United States.

At a well-chosen spot in the stream, a weir has been constructed, but instead of trapping fish in order to count them, electrodes have been implanted in a panel installed in the stream bed. The weir directs fish across the electrodes in the panel that collect data on the size and number of fish and also graphs whether the fish is traveling upstream or downstream. The weir is also designed to accommodate a digital video recorder, which validates the counts of the electrodes.

This facility, consisting of a wall tent to house collection equipment and the resistivity weir, requires few man-hours to operate and is a non-invasive monitoring system.

Neal Espinosa, a fisheries biologist from Utah who is in charge of this site, said the site is one of the only facilities getting solid counts of spawning steelhead. Other agencies in various locations depend on redd counts, that is, locating and counting the spawning sites in the stream bed. These counts can be unreliable at times due to changes in flow and turbidity.

This collection of information allows the Nez Perce Tribe Department of Fisheries Resource Management staff to estimate survival through the dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers. They are able to document trends of Chinook and steelhead smolts emigrating out of the Imnaha River.

Annual reports have provided timely information for the past 13 years to the Fish Passage Center that management can use to base in-season water budgets, evaluate spill requests and monitor general fish health. These operations set the policy that determines the continued survival of these endangered species.

What is the goal of this meticulous gathering of data?

According to the Wallowa County-Nez Perce Tribe Salmon Habitat Recovery Plan, “early fall Chinook salmon, sockeye and coho are now extinct. The remaining populations of summer steelhead and Chinook are at severely depressed levels when compared to historical levels. Several species of fish in Wallowa County have been listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened. Spring, summer and fall Chinook were listed as threatened in 1992. Summer steelhead were listed as threatened in 1997. Bull trout were listed as threatened in 1998.”

The loss of these species is an irreversible tragedy, but restoration of the populations that are struggling is within grasp, officials say.

Project Leader Harbeck said the tribe is not interested in protectionist policies that prevent the people who live and work in Wallowa County and all of Northeast Oregon from enjoying the restored populations of fish.

“The tribe values these resources and feels a strong sense of stewardship for the resources Wallowa County has been blessed with,’’ he said. “Tribal members believe our natural resources are gifts from the Creator to be used by all of us. Stewardship of these resources is the expected behavior. They want a healthy environment so the resources can be used again as they were in the past.”

Harbeck said one of the goals of the department is to reinstate a sport fishery if restored salmon and steelhead populations reach an acceptable level. The impact on Oregon’s economy could be as much as $700 million and more than 6,000 jobs, according to a Conservation Alliance report. Such an impact could mean an economic boom for river and rural towns like Minam, Wallowa, Lostine, Enterprise, Joseph and Imnaha.