Deschutes River Reintroduction Program This Year Sees Highest Return Yet Of Adult Summer Steelhead; Returns Across The Basin Up Over Recent Years
Some 262 adult summer steelhead have returned to the Pelton Round Butte hydroelectric project’s trap on Oregon’s Deschutes River as of November 7 and all have been or will be released into Lake Billy Chinook as part of a reintroduction program to repopulate salmon and steelhead that began in 2011.
The 262 steelhead is far more than last year’s total of 25 on the same date and is the largest steelhead return since the hydro projects’ construction beginning in the 1950s, according to Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, who have jointly owned the projects since 2005. The return on Nov. 7, 2022 was 47 and in 2021 it was just 17 fish.
The early return bodes well for the entire run on the Deschutes River with steelhead typically showing up between July and August each year, and with the run ending the following March.
“We’ve already surpassed the entire run from last year, which was our previous record,” said Megan Hill, manager of environmental science at PGE’s hydropower projects. “While there is still a long way to go toward our long-term goals for fish reintroduction, these returns demonstrate important progress and point to the efficacy of our science-based strategies for fish recovery.”
Steelhead runs generally have been higher this year throughout the Columbia and Snake river basins. The run as counted at Bonneville Dam is at 120 percent of the most recent 10-year average, according to a report by Kelsey Swieka of NOAA Fisheries at the Nov. 5 interagency Technical Management Team meeting. She also said that the count at Lower Granite Dam, the last dam on the Snake River before entering Idaho was 127 percent of the 10-year average.
At roughly 97,000 so far, this year’s steelhead return over Lower Granite Dam marks the highest return since 2016, and Anadromous Fisheries Coordinator Chris Sullivan of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game thinks this year’s return could surpass that mark.
“It is likely we will see more than 100,000 steelhead pass Lower Granite Dam in 2024, which would make this year’s return the highest since 2015,” Sullivan said in recent IDFG blog. (Note: the 100,000 summer steelhead mark at Lower Granite was surpassed this week with 100,941 counted at the dam on November 11, 128 percent of the 10-year average of 78,752 fish.)
However, the record steelhead returns are still well below the 20-year average. While this year’s counts are encouraging, Sullivan says, the “returns still have to be taken with a grain of saltwater. The reason counts are higher this year compared to the recent average is due to the extremely low returns of steelhead from 2017–2023. But the spike is a welcome sign for anglers, as well as for threatened wild steelhead that are also returning in the largest numbers since 2015.”
PGE and Tribe biologists attribute this year’s spike in returns to good ocean conditions, which can vary from year to year, and improvements to fish management practices implemented by the partners at Pelton Round Butte Complex. Practices include “acclimating young fish in-stream prior to release to adjust to the water conditions and imprint on the river’s unique scent, which aids adult fish in navigating back to the same waterway to spawn,” a PGE/Tribe news release says. They have also improved juvenile fish collection procedures by installing a stress relief pond to allow fish more time to recover after handling, and releasing fish into the Lower Deschutes at night when predators are less active.
Most of the steelhead spend two years in saltwater, so the 2024 returning adult fish mostly would have migrated downstream in 2022.
“They all spent time as smolts in the upper basin before heading out to the ocean. These aren’t extra hatchery adults that we are moving upstream,” said John Farmer, PGE spokesperson.
All but three of the adult steelhead originally had been smolts from the Pelton Round Butte Hatchery that were transported into the upper basin for imprinting. However, three of the returning adults were from juveniles that originated on upstream spawning grounds.
The numbers of smolts moved downstream each year through the collection facility in Lake Billy Chinook are: 2019: 11,035; 2020: 16,294; 2021: 12,550; 2022: 19,778; and 2023: 13,720.
“The reintroduction effort has always been about getting enough fish to return so that they can find a mate in their natural spawning grounds upstream of the dams. Returns really improved in 2024, in part because we’ve learned more and incorporated new strategies into this effort,” said Terry Shrader, Pelton Round Butte mitigation coordinator at the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. “This year’s record return of reintroduction program steelhead demonstrates real progress and affirms our many years of hard work.”
Wild upriver summer steelhead destined for areas throughout the Columbia and Snake River basins (including the Deschutes, John Day, Umatilla and Grand Ronde rivers) enter freshwater from May through October and pass above Bonneville Dam starting in July. Returns to the Columbia and Snake River basins have been poor in recent years.
Poor returns are due to factors including dams, degraded freshwater habitat, predation, higher river temperatures, blocked access to spawning areas, ocean conditions and migratory patterns that put them in warmer offshore ocean waters.
In 2021, steelhead fishing was closed on the Deschutes River for the first time since 1978 due to low returns, which impacted anglers, guides and local communities who participate in this popular fishery.
From the dams’ construction up to 2010, anadromous salmon and steelhead migration on the Deschutes had been blocked.
However, in 2005, when the Pelton Round Butte hydropower project was relicensed, the Confederated Tribes and PGE, along with a number of government agencies and environmental organizations, began to plan a reintroduction program that would give anadromous fish access to spawning grounds in the Metolius, Upper Deschutes, and Crooked rivers, all upstream of Lake Billy Chinook. Restoring the runs includes aiding the downstream migration of juvenile fish as well as the upstream return of adults.
“I remain inspired by what I heard from elders and mentors as a young person. Their teachings and their stories echo of a time when our rivers on the Reservation had so many fish you could walk over them,” said Austin Smith Jr., natural resources manager for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. “In exercising our Treaty-reserved rights, we collaborate with our partners to restore this fishery to healthy levels. The progress we’re making through our fish reintroduction program is a start, and it gives us hope that we can once again have enough fish for the first people of this land to sustain themselves.”
All of the returning steelhead spent time in the Upper Deschutes Basin as juveniles before traveling to Lake Billy Chinook on their way to the ocean, the PGE/Tribe news release says. There the juvenile fish were collected in the Selective Water Withdrawal (SWW) and released downstream of the dams to continue their migration. After about two years in the ocean, the steelhead traveled back up the Columbia and Deschutes rivers, where they were collected again as adults at Pelton Dam and are now being released into Lake Billy Chinook to continue upstream to their spawning habitat.
Progress has been slow. In 2018, the total number of summer steelhead collected at Pelton Dam – July through March — was just 36 fish. The number picked up to 57 in 2019, 52 in 2020, and 46 in 2021. Last year’s total run trapped at Pelton Dam and then hauled upstream into the three arms of Lake Billy Chinook was 133 fish, so the 262 fish already trapped and hauled so far this year will prove to be a sharp increase.
According to Farmer, the PGE spokesperson, most of those fish will migrate up into the Crooked River.
“The notable increase in steelhead returns to the Upper Basin is cause for celebration,” said Rika Ayotte, Executive Director for the Deschutes Land Trust. “The collaborative effort to reintroduce these fish into the Upper Deschutes Basin will greatly benefit our wildlife and local communities. The Deschutes Land Trust is honored to be a partner in this work and proud of the habitat conservation and restoration projects that will welcome these fish back to their home waters.”
For background, see:
— CBB, August 9, 2024, Nice Uptick In Return Of Unmarked Summer Steelhead Allows Deschutes River Fishing, Other Rivers On Track, https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/nice-uptick-in-return-of-unmarked-summer-steelhead-allows-deschutes-river-fishing-other-rivers-on-track/
— CBB, August 9, 2024, Fisheries Workshop Offers Latest Info On Deschutes River Salmon, Steelhead, Reintroduction Numbers, https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/fisheries-workshop-offers-latest-info-on-deschutes-river-salmon-steelhead-reintroduction-numbers/
— CBB, August 4, 2022, Salmon, Steelhead Reintroduction In Blocked Areas Above Deschutes River Dams See Best Spring Chinook Return Yet, https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/salmon-steelhead-reintroduction-in-blocked-areas-above-deschutes-river-dams-see-best-spring-chinook-return-yet/
–CBB, April 21, 2022, Oregon Details How It Intends To Manage Fishing On Columbia River Tributaries As Wild Steelhead Numbers Remain Historically Low, https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/oregon-details-how-it-intends-manage-fishing-on-columbia-river-tributaries-as-wild-steelhead-numbers-remain-historically-low/
— CBB, July 29, 2021, Deschutes River Fisheries Workshop Shows The Details, Difficulties, Needed Flexibility Of Long-Term Salmon/Steelhead Reintroduction, https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/deschutes-river-fisheries-workshop-shows-the-details-difficulties-needed-flexibility-of-long-term-salmon-steelhead-reintroduction/
— CBB, October 15, 2020, “Oregon Commission Denies Fish Passage Waiver For Crooked River’s Bowman Dam; Proposed Mitigation Not Enough For Steelhead, Salmon, Trout,” https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/oregon-commission-denies-fish-passage-waiver-for-crooked-rivers-bowman-dam-proposed-mitigation-not-enough-for-steelhead-salmon-trout/
— CBB, June 20, 2019, “Deschutes River Spring Chinook Above Pelton-Round Butte Dams; Good Return Results For Juveniles From Reintroduced Fish,” https://columbiabasinbulletin.org/deschutes-river-spring-chinook-above-pelton-round-butte-dams-good-return-results-for-juveniles-from-reintroduced-fish/
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