Western Native Trout Initiative

Western Native Trout Initiative Receives $5000 Orvis Conservation Grant

In late September 2011, The Western Native Trout Initiative (WNTI) received a $5000 grant from the Orvis Company. The grant was sent to support WNTI’s conservation work for western native trout. Orvis is a WNTI partner, and in the past has supported several projects that WNTI also helped fund. Orvis sets aside 5% of pre-tax profits for the protection of natural resources. Orvis recognizes that healthy aquatic habitats and healthy fish populations create interest and participation in outdoor pursuits, including fly-fishing.

Over the years, Orvis has raised and donated in excess of $10 million for a variety of conservation efforts.

Thank You Orvis!

WNTI Steering Committee to hold its Fall Project Selection Meeting in Denver

The WNTI Steering Committee will be meeting in Denver on December 6th, 7th, and 8th to determine what projects it will be selecting for National Fish Habitat Partnership funding recommendations. For the past three years, WNTI has received $600,000 per year for projects. In 2012, depending on final Congressional budget decisions, WNTI is hopeful to receive similar funding. At the meeting, approximately 45 project proposals will be reviewed, and the top 8-10 projects will be submitted for funding.

Also at the meeting, the WNTI Steering Committee will be selecting a Development Director for the Initiative. The goal will be to increase the amount of funding that is available to the initiative in 2012 and beyond.

The project selection process will be on December 7th. That portion of the meeting is open for any WNTI-related partners, other Fish Habitat Partnerships or interested parties.

WNTI Reports on an All-Western Fish Habitat Partnership Meeting

On September 7, 2011, the Western Native Trout Initiative hosted a western National Fish Habitat Partnerships gathering at the annual American Fisheries Society meeting that was being held in Seattle, WA. For anyone’s interest, the notes from that meeting are posted below, as well as a list of attendees.

Notes From the 9/7/2011 Western Fish Habitat Partnerships Meeting in Seattle, WA

FHPs represented: Western Native Trout Initiative, Desert Fish Habitat Partnership, Kenai Peninsula, Hawaii, Reservoir, Southeast Aquatic Resource Partnership, Mat –Su Alaska, and Great Plains. Candidate partnerships Southeast Alaska and Pacific Marine and Estuarine were also represented.
(A complete list of attendees is attached)

1. FHP updates and reports – Each of the Partnership representative s gave a brief update on their activities and their process for soliciting potential 2012 NFHAP-funded projects. Most have a deadline of October 1 to make sure the projects get entered into the Fish and Wildlife Service FONS system.

Some key comments included:

a) WNTI mentioned its current search for a Development Director, with an open RFP at this time, and reported on its new Small Grant Program that resulted in 14 project applications
b) Desert Fishes mentioned it needed to find a foundation for holding donated funds that have been and will be received.
c) Hawaii mentioned that they have had some Steering Committee overturn, and that their project request resulted in some science and data project proposals, but few habitat projects
d) Mat-Su reported that they were planning their upcoming science and data meeting and had a project RFP out.
e) Kenai reported that they were working on getting proposals submitted from their local groups
f) Reservoirs reported that they had an RFP out for projects, that they were planning a partnership meeting in October at Lake Havasu City. All are invited to attend.
g) Southeast Alaska gave a brief description of the path they took to become a candidate partnership and passed out a fact sheet describing the SEAK plans for the partnership and the next steps they are taking.
h) Pacific Marine & Estuarine passed out a fact sheet that described the Partnership with their reduced sphere of influence now that SEAK FHP has been formed for recognition. They have a new Coordinator and are working on developing their goals, priorities, governance structure and a Strategic Plan.

2. Status of 2012 NFHAP Budget -Tom Busiahn reported on the status of the 2012 NFHAP budget and guidance for the 2012 NFHAP project selection. The FWS is working on the final guidance at this time, and the budget looks like it will be similar to the 2011 budget. No one knows exactly how it will work out or when the 2012 budget will be finalized. There is likely to be a request to include individual project budgets in the FHP prioritized project requests that get submitted to Washington. This will require some additional work on the part of the Partnerships and the FWS regional FHP coordinators. Details will be available in the final guidance from the Service.

Tom also discussed briefly the NFHAP Board’s review of the NFH Action Plan and the effort to revise the plan and add some new objectives. Tom distributed an information sheet that has the draft new objectives on it, and asked the FHPs to review and comment with suggestions and ideas. Comments can be sent to – partner@fishhabitat.org

The objectives are listed here:

Tom also reminded the FHPs that there is an upcoming all-FHP tele-conference call on Thursday, September 29.

3. Discussion of the Fish Habitat Partnerships Evaluation Measures and Evaluation Process-

The WNTI Coordinator, because he is on the working group that is developing the FHP evaluation process asked the attendees to comment on the draft FHP evaluation process, timeline, and evaluation form that is being developed. There was a good discussion that clearly pointed out that the partnerships that were present did not have a good understanding of the process, what was expected from the review and exactly what outcomes would result from the review.

Tom Busiahn was helpful, along with the Coordinator, is explaining the intent of the “test drive” of the evaluation process that all the partnerships are expected to be involved in.

1. Relation to the 5-year FHP review - According to NFHAP Board policy, the FHPs are subject to a 5-year review. The development of the new evaluation process comes from recognizing the need for such reviews. It is recognized that there is a wide range of FHP ages, from 5 years to less than 1 year, and that the reviews of an annual nature will be different for each of the partnerships due to that fact. It was clarified that the current thinking is that a separate 5-year review will not need to be completed by the older FHPs , and that the completed first annual review will suffice for that.

2. Performance Measures - It was explained to the group that the NFHAP Board had on July 27th, at the Wisconsin Board meeting, approved the testing of the FHP Performance Evaluation Measures to evaluate the how the process and the measures worked in a “test drive” situation. The Board indicated that the performance measures would be subject to change depending on how well they worked in the Test Drive. The Performance Measures are included here as an Appendix.

3. Draft Initial Performance Process, Timeline and Evaluation Form Handout - Robin Knox, the WNTI Coordinator distributed the draft process and timeline sheet to the FHPs present to get their reaction and comments so that he could report back to the Evaluation workgroup suggestions on how to improve the draft process and the Evaluation Form. In addition, the draft evaluation form was also distributed to the attendees to help them understand the process.

There was quite a bit of discussion about the evaluation process and what the outcome of the “Test Drive” would be, as well as lots of confusion about how well the draft evaluation form questions meshed with the Performance Measures, and exactly what was being evaluated. It was also pointed out that a new partnership, with only a year or less of projects, would have a far different response that an established FHP with 4 or 5 years experience.

The outcomes of the discussion provided Robin with ideas that will be forwarded to the Evaluation workgroup for their consideration and modification of documents.

One idea is that there needs to be just one cover letter, explicitly explaining that this evaluation is a “test” of the evaluation process and the performance measures, and that the measures and process will be modified as needed based on feedback and results.

A second idea is to clarify that the evaluation is not an evaluation of the projects that have been chosen by a given partnership, but an evaluation of the process by which projects are chosen, monitored for outcomes and how a partnership has operated in choosing projects.

A third idea is to separate the timeline and steps for the partnerships completion of forms from the timeline and steps that the Board review team will require. This would make the instruction sheet a little more simple and easier to understand.

In addition, a fourth idea was in the Evaluation Form, it was suggested that the Performance measure be listed with the evaluation question for clarity, and eliminating a need to have separate documents on hand.

The attendees expressed some concern about the timeline and amount of work that would be required to a) hold 17 different FHP conference calls and scheduling those; and b) getting the evaluations done during the timeframe when the FHPs are doing their project selection and ranking activities.

4. Future NFHAP Partnership meetings – Most attendees felt it was worthwhile to have these face-to-face meetings and discuss issues like understanding candidate partnerships, getting direct information on NFHAP issues like evaluations, and meeting the commitment to coordinate with other FHPs.

The next logical place would be the AFS 2012 meeting in Minneapolis, which is in an area where there are multiple FHPs. It was decided by those present that Maureen Gallagher would be an excellent person to arrange the next FHP gabfest.

Submitted: Robin Knox, WNTI Coordinator September 12, 2011

Attendees:
Cecil Rich FWS - AK
Mike Edwards Kenai FHP
Scott Roth FWS - CO
James Ray FWS - AK
K Koski SEAK FHP
Jeff Boxrucker Reservoir FHP
Gordon Smith Hawaii FHP
Megan Bean Desert FHP
Kayla Barrett Desert FHP
Tom Busiahn FWS - DC
John Biagi SARP FHP
Gary Davis Mat-Su FHP
Jeff Davis Mat-Su FHP
Neil Stichert FWS - AK
Roger Harding SEAK FHP
Christopher EstesWNTI FHP
Dan Dauwalter TU - Desert FHP
Dan Shively FWS - PSME FHP
Julie Carter WNTI FHP
Stan Allen PSMFC - PSME FHP
Jason Kline Desert FHP
Sue Mauger Kenai FHP
Gary Whelan NFHAP
Andrea Ostroff NFHAP
Robin Knox WNTI FHP