Officials record surge in migration at 'fish ladder'

• Conservation officials say more than 85,000 alewives have wiggled back over the Mianus River dam since the fish's annual migration began two weeks ago, making Greenwich's the most active fishway run in the state. The alewives make for Mianus Pond each spring to spawn by traversing a 'fish ladder,' a system of pools and chutes that act as a sort of aquatic stairwell over the dam.
• This year's 85,457 total dwarfs the 4,889 and 6,515 tallies from the previous two years, when Michael Aurelia, former director of the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency, began tracking the numbers of alewives passing through by reading an electronic counter installed by the state.
• 'This is the best year we've seen, for sure, but it's hard to put it into context because we don't know how many we had in past years or why we're seeing this many,' Aurelia said yesterday afternoon as he reset the counter at the top of the fish ladder, behind a former pump station at East Putnam Avenue and River Road Extension. (Michael Dinan, Norwalk Advocate)