North Pacific International Chapter
American Fisheries Society

The committee expressed its appreciation for the donation of $2,000 dollars from NPIC in late 2005. The committee is making steady progress toward its primary goals; which are (1) the publication of Native Fish Symposium papers and (2) creation of a GIS file structure and database for native western North American freshwater fishes. The committee has completed the peer review process and final acceptance of all papers submitted from the western division symposium held at the 2004 and the native fishes and bull trout symposiums held at the 2004 NPIC Annual Meeting. A database format has been developed and data has been entered and reviewed for the western United States. The database is presently being expanded for western Canada and Mexico.

Report on the Coastal Cutthroat Trout Symposium

I attended the 2005 Coastal Cutthroat Symposium held September 29-October 1, 2005 at Fort Worden State Park in Washington. NPIC was one of the sponsors of the symposium. This symposium is the second Coastal Cutthroat Symposium, following the original held Reedsport, Oregon in 1995. The objectives of the 2005 Coastal Cutthroat Trout Symposium were: 1) update coastal cutthroat trout information presented during the 1995 Sea-run Cutthroat Trout Symposium, in Reedsport, Oregon, 2) enhance knowledge on all facets of life history and ecology, 3) provide current assessment of the status of populations coast-wide, and 4) encourage development of a coordinated, range-wide conservation plan. Technical sessions included Status, Trends, and Management; Biology; and Conservation Planning. The publication committee is finalizing peer review of articles and publication of the symposium proceedings should occur sometime during 2007.

Report on the 2006 Salvelinus Confluentus Curiosity Society Annual Workshop

The annual meeting of the SCCS was hosted on Aug. 30-Sept. 1 in the Lewis River watershed near Mt. St. Helens. These meetings usually are held annually at various sites within the range of bull trout, generally when spawning bull trout are staging. The meetings are kept informal and as inexpensive as possible. Generally there are roughly 6-8 hours of presentations held over several days and a day devoted to field work. The last 2 meetings were held at Nehalem, Washington (Skagit watershed) and Glacier National Park (Flathead watershed). The 2007 meeting will be held on August 22-24 at Perkins Lake in the Stanley Basin of Idaho. If you are interested in making a presentation at the meeting, please contact Forest Fisheries Biologist John Chatel (jchatel@fs.fed.us). Please contact me (rob_nielsen@urscorp.com) or John if you are interested in attending the meeting. I can forward meeting information as it becomes available. I highly recommend attending these meetings for anyone working with bull trout who wants to keep current on bull trout status, management, and recovery efforts.

Western Division Bull Trout Committee

The Montana Chapter of AFS requested that the bull trout committee conduct a survey (2006) of AFS biologists in order to establish a scientific evaluation regarding bull trout status, trends, recovery progress, and scientific concerns. The survey revisited the threat factors identified in the status review and listing rule, and more particularly in various regional assessments, to substantiate whether actual on-the-ground progress has been made on them.