Research Interests: Population Estimation, Environmental Sampling, Effects Assessment

Prospective graduate students may contact this person about availability as a faculty advisor.

Mobile species which have among the highest aesthetic and economic value are also among the most difficult of the natural resources to survey. Yet, wild population often must compete with the demands of greater energy and commodities production. In order to assess the cost benefits of alternative resource management policies, improvements in population survey techniques and tests of effects will be necessary. Current research efforts focus on assessing population effects in an hypothesis testing framework using capture-recapture data. Research on design optimality indicates that many field studies which failed to detect population changes could have done so if sampling efforts had been properly allocated. Current applications of statistics include:

1. Estimating salmonid smolt survival using passive and radio-tag methodologies in the Columbia River Basin.
2. Designing fixed-location hydroacoustic monitoring at hydroelectric projects to estimate bypass efficiency, spill passage, and turbine passage rates of salmonids.
3. Estimating run-timing of the salmonid outmigration in Columbia and Snake Rivers.
4. Estimating the impacts of larval fish entrainment at a coastal nuclear power plant.
5. Incorporating smolt survival rates with engineering to develop fish-friendly turbines.
6. Developing demographic techniques for monitoring wildlife populations.

 Select Publications

• Dillingham, PW, JR Skalski, KE Ryding. 2006. Fine-scale geographic interactions between Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) trends and local fisheries. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 63:107-119.
• Miller, TJ, JR Skalski. 2006. Integrating design- and model-based inference to estimate length and age composition in North Pacific longline catches. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 63:1092-1114.
• Skalski, JR, JJ Millspaugh. 2006. Application of multidimensional change-in-ratio methods using program USER. Wildl. Soc. Bull. 34:433-439.
• Skalski, JR, JJ Millspaugh, KE Ryding. 2006. The impact of hunter postseason questionnaire design on big game harvest estimation. Wildl. Soc. Bull. 34:329-337.
• Skalski, JR, JJ Millspaugh. 2004. Generic variance expressions, precision, and sampling optimization of the sex-age-kill model of population reconstruction. J. Wildl. Mgmt. 66:1308-1316.
• Gove, NE, JR Skalski, P Zager, RL Townsend. 2002. Statistical models for population reconstruction using age-at-harvest data. J. Wildl. Mgmt. 66:310-320.
• Hedgepeth, JB, GE Johnson, JR Skalski, J Burczynski. 2002. Active fish sonar (AFTS) for assessing fish behavior. Acta Acoustic United with Acustica 88:739-742.
• Muir, WD, SG Smith, JG Williams, EE Hockersmith, JR Skalski. 2001. Survival estimates for migrant yearling chinook salmon and steelhead in the lower Snake and lower Columbia Rivers, 1993-1998. N. Am. J. Fish. Mgmt. 21:269-282.
• Skalski, JR, DA Coats, AK Fukuyama. 2001. Criteria for oil spill recovery: a case study of the intertidal community of Prince William Sound, Alaska, following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Environ. Mgmt. 28:9-18.
• Skalski, JR, J Lady, R Townsend, AE Giorgi, JR Stevenson, CM Peven, RD McDonald. 2001. Estimating in-river survival of migrating salmonid smolts using radiotelemetry. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 58:1987-1997.
• Lady, J. and J. R. Skalski. 1998. Estimators of stream residence time of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) based on release-recapture data. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 55:2580-2587.
• Skalski, J. R. 1998. Estimating season-wide survival rates of outmigrating smolt in the Snake River, Washington. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 55:761-769.
• Skalski, J. R., S. G. Smith, R. N. Iwamoto, J. G. Williams, and A. Hoffmann. 1998. Use of PIT-tags to estimate survival of migrating juvenile salmonids in the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 55:1484-1493.
• Skalski, J. R. 1996. Regression of abundance estimates from mark-recapture surveys against environmental covariates. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 53:196-204.
• Skalski, J. R., G. E. Johnson, C. M. Sullivan, E. Kudera, and M. W. Erho. 1996. Statistical evaluation of turbine bypass efficiency at Wells Dam on the Columbia River, Washington. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 53:2188-2198.
• Skalski, J. R. 1995. Statistical considerations in the design and analysis of environmental damage assessment studies. J. Envir. Manage. 43:67-85.
• Skalski, J. R. 1994. Estimating wildlife resources based on incomplete area surveys. Wildl. Soc. Bul. 22:192-203.
• Skalski, J. R., A. Hoffmann, B. H. Ransom, and T. W. Steig. 1993. Fixed-location hydroacoustic monitoring designs for estimating fish passage using stratified random and systematic sampling. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 50:1208-1221.
• Skalski, J. R., and J. A. Perez-Comas. 1993. Nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation of mesh size selectivity. Fish. Res. 18:321-334.
• Skalski, J. R., W. H. Pearson, and C. I. Malme. 1992. Effects of sound from a geophysical device on catch-per-unit-effort in a hook and line fishery for rockfish (Sebastes spp.). Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 49:1357-1365.
• Skalski, J. R., and D. S. Robson. 1992. Techniques for wildlife investigations: Design and analysis of capture data. Academic Press. 237 pp.
• Skalski, J. R. 1990. A design for long-term status and trends monitoring. J. Envir. Manage. 30:139-144.