The 2015 PIT Tag Workshop: Learning about rare fish and rare-fish databases

The PIT Tag Workshop is a conference hosted approximately every four years to address use of, technology improvements to, and analysis of passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag data for rare fish in the Columbia River Basin and beyond. Database and web-application developer Kirstin Holfelder and zoologist Rob Schorr attended the 2015 PIT Tag Workshop in late January at the Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington. Holfelder is being assisted by Schorr and Amy Greenwell in the development of STReaMS (Species Tagging, Research, and Management System), which will be the new database for the Upper Colorado and San Juan river basins rare fish data. These data are used to monitor some of the West’s rarest fish species, including Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus lucius), humpback chub (Gila cypha), bonytail chub (Gila elegans), and razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus). The meeting sponsors, PTAGIS, presented the evolution of the database used to house Columbia River rare fish data, and it gave Holfelder and Schorr a chance to identify needs or modifications to the developing STReaMS.

Kirstin Holfelder in front of Multnomah Falls.

Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington.

View of the Columbia River from Skamania Lodge.