Comments on Draft NOAA Technical Recovery Team Documents Identifying
Independent Salmonid Populations Within Evolutionarily Significant Units
December 12, 2003 | document ISAB 2003-4
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This is the Independent Scientific Advisory Board's review of the
Interior Columbia River Technical Recovery Team (TRT) document
"Independent Populations of Chinook, Steelhead, and Sockeye for
Listed Evolutionarily Significant Units within the Interior Columbia River
Domain". NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center requested
this review on September 10, 2003.
The ISAB answers the two questions posed by the Science Center:
- Are the approaches for identifying independent populations
reasonable, given the data available?
- Do the conclusions flow logically from the data and analyses
presented?
In the ISAB's answer to the first question, the ISAB makes
recommendations that it believes would improve the analysis and clarity
specifically of Independent Populations of Chinook, Steelhead, and Sockeye
for Listed Evolutionarily Significant Units within the Interior Columbia
River Domain.
In the ISAB's answer to the second question, the ISAB did not
restrict itself to a narrow consideration of whether the TRT used the data
available in a scientifically rigorous manner in this specific instance.
Rather, the ISAB describes its understanding of the relationship between
the legal ESA designations —ESU, independent population, and
subpopulation — and spatially structured metapopulations. The ISAB
identifies technical approaches to making management decisions, such as
defining management units, under conditions of uncertainty. Finally, the
ISAB recommends that a more precise set of quantitative definitions is
needed to guide the TRTs before the suitability of the independent
population designations can be assessed. The ISAB hopes its comments are
useful not only to the Interior Columbia TRT effort but to the TRT effort
in general.
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