Marking Maria Slough Chinook to evaluate representativeness of the exploitation rate indicator stock for the Fraser Summer Run age-0.3 stock group

The indicator stock for Fraser River summer run age-0.3 stock group of Chinook Salmon is the Lower Shuswap population in the interior of BC. However, Maria Slough is the only population in this stock group in the Lower Fraser River and its population is at a much higher conservation concern than the rest of the summer run age-0.3 stock. The CDFO Salmon Enhancement Program has re-initiated hatchery production as a conservation measure for supplementing Maria Slough Chinook since abundance has declined to less than 20% of its historic average. Additionally, the escapement estimate has low precision and moderate accuracy. This project will implement an innovative application of passive integrated transponder (PIT) technology to increase the accuracy and precision of the escapement, and pair it with applying coded wire tags (CWT) to Maria Slough Chinook to collect fisheries and other biological data.