NOAA takes back $80 from Fish and Game grant for Southeast Chinook tag sampling

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration took back $80 on Oct. 27 from a Pacific Salmon Treaty grant to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for sampling Chinook salmon caught in Southeast Alaska marine sport fisheries, according to the USAspending.gov award record.

The change leaves $92,606 obligated to the grant. That is the amount the federal government has committed to date, not what has been spent. The grant was first obligated April 3, 2024, and covered work from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024.

The money was meant to raise coded-wire-tag sampling of Chinook caught in those fisheries to at least 20%, the coastwide target. Department port samplers inspect Chinook and coho for the tags. The department has described this kind of sampling as a way to estimate what share of Chinook carry a clipped adipose fin and a coded-wire tag.

The grant description says the precision and accuracy of tag-based harvest estimates depend directly on the sampling rate.

The grant also pays for matched scale and genetic tissue samples and for monitoring of Chinook catch, harvest, stock composition and effort. Results are to be shared with fishery stakeholders and the Pacific Salmon Commission, including its Chinook and Transboundary technical committees.

The Chinook Technical Committee says coded-wire-tag information is used across the treaty area to assess stocks and monitor the impacts of mark-selective Chinook fisheries. Under the treaty, Alaska, Washington and Oregon use marking, tagging, fishery sampling and analysis to assess impacts on wild Chinook.