Shad runs decrease despite work of fishery management

• These are exciting, yet sad times for anadromous fisheries management on the Thames River Watershed. My first professional job was a seasonal position for the Department of Environmental Protection's then relatively new Anadromous Fisheries Program.
• At the time, the first salmon was yet to poke its nose into the Connecticut River system, but alewives and blueback herring were so thick in the state's rivers you couldn't see the bottom at places such as Brookside Cafe in Preston during the latter part of April or early May. At the same time, American shad runs in the Connecticut River system fluctuated between 800,000 and 1.5 million fish per year.
• There was only a small remnant spawning population of shad in the Thames River at the time, but river herring (also known as buckeys) were very abundant and made the best live bait for catching big striped bass in the river this time of year. Around the same time, the sea-run brown trout program was near or just past its peak.
• The problem was, other than the fish lift at the Holyoke Dam on the Connecticut River and a fish ladder on Latimer Brook for the sea-run browns, there was no way to get these huge runs of shad and herring up over the major dams and into their natural spawning areas. Yet their numbers remained high with annual fluctuations that were due to spawning success, which is weather dependent. That was in the 1970s. Unfortunately, things have done a nearly complete reversal since that time.
• Shad runs in the Connecticut River are down by about 90 percent, with only 116,137 American shad being passed over the Holyoke Dam. Atlantic salmon have been hovering at 100 to 200 per year. Alewife totals were so small they weren't even counted and blueback herring counts dropped from a few hundred thousand per year to only about 534 fish during the 2005 spring runs.
• The sea-run story is a long one, but is now maintained via excess hatchery browns rather than the genetic sea-run stock that the state was so proud of back in the 1960s. In the Thames River system, the situation is not quite so dismal. Last year, the Greenville fish elevator lifted 1,730 American shad, 586 alewives, 3 blueback herring, 45 gizzard shad, 10 stripers, 6 sea lamprey, 7 sea-run trout and 24 eels up into the impoundment above the dam.
• The 2005 season was an odd one with cold temperatures, flooding rains, late summer drought and generally horrid weather conditions. There have been as many as 5,576 shad passed at Greenville Dam in 1998 and 4,202 in 2003, but the runs have tapered off to 1,600 to 2,000 since that time. Alewife runs were only in the hundreds at that time.
• The shad are just getting started for the 2006 season, with 116 that passed over Greenville Dam as of April 19, but there have already been 1,809 alewives sent up stream to spawn above the dam, a sign that perhaps the fish passage is helping. By May 10 last year, only 500-plus alewives had been passed over Greenville and the run was pretty much shot for the year.
• Why are there such tremendous declines in herring and shad populations in the large river systems here in Connecticut and throughout most of the northeast? No one knows for sure. However, it is suspected that heavy predation from the tremendous increase in the striped bass (and probably bluefish) populations up and down the coast is the primary reason.
• It's not as easy as simple predation. Weather conditions, breeding success and recruitment to spawning age are factors. I have long believed that when the commercial purse seiners essentially wiped out the bunker (menhaden) populations in Long Island Sound, and stripers were restored, they turned to other species, such as herring, male shad, flounder, porgies, even fluke as prey because the once very abundant menhaden were not present anymore. Plus there weren't quite as many stripers around back in the '60s and '70s as there are today.
• This year, Massachusetts and Rhode island joined Connecticut in banning the harvest of river herring (alewives and blueback herring) in order to help preserve their dwindling spawning stocks. Admittedly, the anadromous runs are nowhere near as large in the Thames River as would have been predicted based on 1970 populations. However, the lift at Greenville Dam, along with two relatively new fish passage facilities -- one at the Occum Dam, the other at Taftville (that were made operational late last year) -- a ladder at Versailles Pond and a new one in the works for Tunnel Hill Dam on the Quinebaug River in Taftville, should all help restore the Thames River's herring and shad populations.
• The key is getting these fish up river to prime spawning areas and feeder streams up stream and away from the striped bass predation that takes place below the Greenville Dam and other such places along the coast. Improvements will not be instantaneous. For example, American shad born one year don't return as spawning females for four or five years, while males return three to five years after their birth date. Alewives have a shorter turn around of two to three years.
• Therefore, if the fish being passed over the dams this year are successful, it is hoped and very possible, that these fish passage facilities along with a lift at Trading Cove, will increase the runs of herring and American shad many fold over the next five or 10 years. [by BOB SAMPSON JR. For the Norwich Bulletin]