Come join us on Tuesday at 10:00 am in Keystone 102 at UW-Tacoma for the third talk in our series, “Human Dimensions of Environmental Change.” Erik McDonald, a lecturer at UW-Tacoma, and Clayton David, a biologist at The Salmon Center, will present a talk entitled, "Investigating the efficacy of a novel steelhead supplementation technique as a capstone experience for UWT students.” Here’s an abstract for their talk: Over the past few years several critical threats have been identified as contributing to the decline of salmon and steelhead populations within Puget Sound. These threats have been categorized into four areas: traditional hatchery programs, loss of spawning and rearing habitat, hydro-electric dams and other fish passage problems, and non-sustainable harvest practices. For the purpose of our discussion, we will focus on the ecological problems surrounding traditional hatchery programs and how they have caused a degradation in genetic diversity, effectively lowering the survivability and fitness of anadromous fish. The Hood Canal Steelhead Project, lead by NOAA Fisheries is investigating an experimental hatchery conservation method called wild supplementation. This experiment differs from traditional hatchery programs because the fish are allowed to spawn naturally in their natal streams. Eggs are then hydraulically extracted from the redds, then raised in a hatchery to be two year old smolt, and finally released back into the same stream where they were spawned to supplement the wild smolt out-migration. This experiment is truly innovative because this project encompasses the entire Hood Canal watershed rather than any single river; there are three experimental streams being supplemented and four control streams being monitored. As a partner in the project, Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group (HCSEG), is responsible for monitoring spawning activity, adult returns, and smolt out-migration on one experimental stream and two control streams. UW-T has partnered with HCSEG to host a class of students to conduct the monitoring, and collect data, such as steelhead smolt abundance, DNA, age structure, and physical measurements. In addition, students perform habitat surveys at varying levels within each watershed. They use this data to make assumptions as to whether the supplementation process has increased the number of wild steelhead within the experimental streams as compared to the control streams. They can also answer questions about if the supplementation process is actually having a negative effect on the wild populations. Their results are then presented at the UWaTERS conference at the end of the year. Hope to see you there! -Jeremy -- Jeremy M. Davis, Ph.D. School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences UW-Tacoma