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Oregon Water Science Center

Oregon Water Science Center Hydrologic Studies

Movements and Behavior of Radio-Tagged Adult Lost River and Shortnose Suckers in Response to Water Quality in Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon

PROJECT CHIEF: Tamara M. Wood

COOPERATOR: Bureau of Reclamation



BACKGROUND

Severe water quality problems in Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon, have led to critical fishery concerns for the region, including the listing of Lost River and shortnose suckers as endangered in 1988. In April 2001, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) released a Biological Opinion in which several reasonable and prudent alternatives to allow for the continued operation of the Klamath Project were presented. One of these alternatives was for the Bureau of Reclamation to develop a study plan to better determine the role of "water quality refuge" areas for adult sucker survival in Upper Klamath Lake. This study is designed to determine the behavioral response of suckers to the distribution of poor and better water quality in the northern part of the lake.

OBJECTIVES APPROACH

About 100 adult suckers will be tagged during the first year of study (targeting equal numbers of Lost River and shortnose suckers of each sex) with digitally encoded programmable transmitters that will be turned on from approximately February to October. Because of the extended life of these transmitters, the study be continued for 3 years, with the possibility that additional tagging will be conducted between years to supplement sample sizes from individuals that may die or leave the study area.

The proposed sample size of tagged fish allows for the possibility to randomly select individuals to locate and collect data on a weekly and perhaps daily basis, allowing for stronger statistical comparisons. Fish to be located will be randomly selected to allow greater inference of these results to the overall population. Also, the sampling design allows for the ability to test for individual differences before grouping observations from the tagged population.

Boat-tracking surveys will be conducted both during daylight hours and during hours of darkness to determine if differences in behavioral patterns exist between day and night (e.g., depth distribution or distance to shore). Boat tracking surveys will be supplemented by aerial surveys to determine the locations of general congregations of fish.

A network of water quality monitoring stations (8-12 sites) will be established in the northern portion of Upper Klamath Lake that will provide previously unattainable detail on the spatial and temporal variability of water quality refugia in the lake. In addition to the fixed stations, rapid, high-resolution water quality profiles along fixed transects based around monitoring stations and near shore areas will be used to establish the horizontal scale of variability in water quality. The data from the fixed stations will form the basis of a geographic information system (GIS) spatial and temporal model of the water quality conditions in the northern portion of Upper Klamath Lake. The data from the transects will provide a calibration dataset for the GIS model. Water quality data collected in conjunction with fish position will provide a validation dataset for the GIS model. Once the GIS-based water quality model is constructed, water quality data on a weekly and possibly daily level can be overlayed with fish position estimates. This approach allows for spatial and temporal analyses of fish position and water quality and will prove to be particularly useful for identifying associations of radio-tagged fish with certain areas or water quality conditions.

In addition to implanting radio transmitters in fish, a subsample of fish will be tagged with archive tags capable of recording hydrostatic pressure and water temperature. Individual fish implanted with these tags will be recaptured after the summer and the tags will be removed. The information collected will provide a detailed history of the water depth exposure of the fish.

DATA

Water Quality Data, 2002

Weekly contacts of Lost River and shortnose suckers, 2002

Water Quality Data, 2003

Weekly contacts of Lost River and shortnose suckers, 2003



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