Realizing the Promise of Parentage Based Tagging for Addressing Conservation and Management of Steelhead in the Columbia River Basin

Since 2008, cooperating state, tribal, and federal agencies have genetically sampled and genotyped steelhead broodstock at all hatcheries in the Snake River Basin in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. This regional implementation of Parentage Based Tagging has resulted in the genetic tagging of >95% of the hatchery smolts produced in the Snake River (~12 million smolts per year). This accounts for ~61% of the hatchery steelhead that are released in the entire Columbia River basin each year. The IDFG and CRITFC are committed to using PBT technology to complement existing mechanical tagging evaluations, or in some cases replace mechanical tags for assessments where their use may have limited precision or uncertain accuracy. This poster provides examples of current sampling programs that are in place throughout the Columbia River basin that utilize the Snake River PBT baseline to address conservation and management questions throughout the region. Collaborative efforts are currently underway to extend this technology throughout the Columbia River Basin.