Coordination

The Columbia Basin PIT Tag Information System (PTAGIS) is a coordination and data management project of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC). PSMFC is an organization established by Congress in 1947 to help resource agencies and the fishing industry sustainably manage Pacific Ocean resources in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, and California.

PTAGIS is funded by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program under project number 1990-080-00. This program is developed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to help protect and enhance fish and wildlife affected by the federal hydropower dams.

The PIT Tag Steering Committee (PTSC) was established to provide technical guidance and facilitate coordination between PTAGIS and its users.

Approximately 40 different state, federal, tribal, county, private, non-profit, and academic fisheries management and research organizations have submitted data to the regional PTAGIS database.

PTAGIS staff are located in two offices: Portland, OR, where the data tools are developed and maintained, and in Kennewick, WA, where the field operations staff are headquartered.

Since 1993, PTAGIS has had an integral role in the NOAA Fisheries project 1983-319-00 (New Marking and Monitoring Techniques for Fish) when PTAGIS assumed responsibility from NMFS for the operation and maintenance of the permanent interrogation systems installed in the juvenile fish bypass facilities at Lower Granite, Little Goose, and McNary dams. In recent years, PTAGIS collaborates with this NOAA project in the research, development, and evaluation of new PIT tag technologies, such as a new generation of tags, antennas and transceivers that provides greater read range, and lower cost for installation.

PTAGIS staff design, operate and maintain the electronic detection systems of large-scale interrogation sites located at Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) projects on the Columbia and Snake rivers. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between BPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) defines the roles and responsibilities for installing and maintaining this PIT tag infrastructure.

The Fish Passaged Advisory Committee (FPAC) reviews and approves requests from researchers to use the PTAGIS Separation by Code (SbyC) system to target specific fish for additional sampling or to change the default return-to-river setting for all PIT tagged fish.