Saving Seafood

Biologists use trucks to help shad reach spawning ground

September 23, 2021 — The long-running effort to get American shad back to their historic spawning grounds this year enlisted a tool that had been abandoned two decades ago: trucks.

With operation of the multi-million dollar fish lifts halted at Conowingo Dam, biologists resorted to capturing shad below the dam and trucking them upstream before releasing the fish back into the Susquehanna River to continue their spawning migration.

By the time the trucks stopped running on June 5, they hauled more than 6,300 shad upstream. That’s a fraction of the number that swam upriver during historic shad runs, but it’s the most that got past the first three dams on the river in more than a decade.

And it wouldn’t have happened without the trucks. Fish lifts at the 94-foot-high dam have not operated for two years because of concerns that invasive species such as northern snakeheads and blue catfish were moving upstream through the fish lifts, too.

“From a shad perspective, we feel like in the short term it is best to get as many to the spawning grounds as we can,” said Sheila Eyler, who coordinates fish restoration efforts on the Susquehanna for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

American shad definitely needed the helping hand.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

 

Shad recovery efforts not paying off, study shows

September 21, 2020 — The American shad’s Atlantic population remains at a historic low, despite longstanding commercial fishing bans in several states and millions of dollars invested in restoring the fish’s habitat.

That sober news comes from the most comprehensive survey yet of the species’ status on the East Coast and the first of any kind in 13 years. The sprawling assessment by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission designates the shad population as “depleted” from Maine to Florida.

“There should be a lot more shad than there are out there,” said Michael Bailey, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientist and one of the assessment’s authors.

In the Chesapeake Bay region, the study suggests that the rate of death among adult shad — a key measure of a population’s health — is “unsustainable” in the Potomac River but “sustainable” in the Rappahannock and York.

Once one of the largest commercial fisheries along the coast and around the Bay, shad catches have bottomed out at about 1% of their late-1800s levels. Although the shad fishery has all but disappeared in the Chesapeake, scientists contend that the species serves a critical ecological role in the estuary as a vital link in its food chain.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

ASMFC American Shad Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report

August 24, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s American Shad Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Report, as well as the Assessment Overview are now available on the Commission’s Shad & River Herring webpage,http://www.asmfc.org/species/shad-river-herring, (under stock assessment reports).  Links to both documents are also below.

American Shad Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report (Aug 2020)

American Shad Stock Assessment Overview (Aug 2020)

ASMFC: American Shad Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Find Coastwide Abundance Remains Depleted

August 5, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The 2020 American Shad Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report indicate American shad remain depleted on a coastwide basis. Multiple factors, such as overfishing, inadequate fish passage at dams, predation, pollution, water withdrawals, channelization of rivers, changing ocean conditions, and climate change are likely responsible for shad decline from historic abundance levels. Additionally, the assessment finds that shad recovery is limited by restricted access to spawning habitat. Current barriers partly or completely block 40% of historic shad spawning habitat, which may equate to a loss of more than a third of spawning adults. The “depleted” determination was used instead of “overfished” because the impact of fishing on American shad stocks cannot be separated from the impacts of all other factors responsible for changes in abundance. The benchmark assessment was endorsed by the Peer Review Panel and accepted by the Shad & River Herring Management Board (Board) for management use.

“On behalf of the Board, I want to commend the members of the Shad Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee for their outstanding work on the 2020 Benchmark Stock Assessment Report,” stated Board Chair Dr. Michael Armstrong from Massachusetts. “This is a considerable body of work that substantially advances our understanding of the challenges facing American shad stocks along the Atlantic coast. It certainly has given the Board a lot to think about regarding next steps in management to improve population resiliency. Given the stock-specific nature of shad management, the Board has tasked the Technical Committee with identifying potential paths forward to improve shad stocks along the coast considering the assessment results.”

Coastwide adult mortality is unknown, but was determined to be unsustainable for some system‐specific stocks, indicating the continued need for management action to reduce adult mortality. Specifically, adult mortality was determined to be unsustainable for three stocks – Connecticut, Delaware, and Potomac – and sustainable for five stocks – Hudson, Rappahannock, York, Albemarle Sound, and Neuse (see table on page 2 for information by system). The terms “sustainable” and “unsustainable” were used instead of “not overfishing” and “overfishing” because fishing mortality cannot be separated from other components contributing to total mortality. Though adult mortality was determined to be sustainable for some system‐specific stocks, it is important to note that maintaining sustainable adult mortality will not result in favorable abundance status if juvenile mortality is unsustainable. Unfortunately, juvenile mortality status cannot be determined due to insufficient data collection in all systems; without these determinations, significant uncertainty remains in assessment advice for management of American shad. Thus, the recovery of American shad will need to address multiple factors including anthropogenic (human-caused) habitat alterations, predation by non‐native predators, and exploitation by fisheries. The assessment also highlights the need for stock composition monitoring data in order to separate the impacts of fishing from other factors driving American shad population dynamics in future stock assessments.

Read the full release here

ASMFC American Shad Stock Assessment Workshop Scheduled for November 18-22, in Charleston, SC

October 10, 2019 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will hold the American Shad Benchmark Stock Assessment Workshop at the Francis Marion Hotel, 387 King Street, Charleston, SC.  The stock assessment, which is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2020, will evaluate the health of stocks along the Atlantic coast and inform management of this species.  The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public, with the exception of discussions of confidential data*, when the public will be asked to leave the room.

The Commission welcomes the submission of alternate analyses or assessment models.  For alternate models to be considered, the model description, model input, final model estimates, and complete source code must be provided to Jeff Kipp, Senior Stock Assessment Scientist, at jkipp@asmfc.org by October 18, 2019. Any models submitted without complete, editable source code and input files will not be considered.

For more information about the assessment or attending the upcoming workshop (space is limited), please contact Caitlin Starks, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at cstarks@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

* Each state and federal agency is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of its data and deciding who has access to its confidential data. In the case of our stock assessments and peer reviews, all analysts and, if necessary, reviewers, have been granted permission by the appropriate agency to use and view confidential data. When the assessment team needs to show and discuss these data, observers to our stock assessment process are asked to leave the room to preserve confidentiality.

ASMFC Begins Preparations for American Shad Benchmark Stock Assessment

January 16, 2018 — ARLINGTON, Va. — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has initiated a benchmark stock assessment for American shad (Alosa sapidissima) to be completed in the summer of 2019.  The goals of the assessment are to evaluate the health of stocks along the Atlantic coast and inform management of this species.  The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public, with the exception of discussions of confidential data, when the public will be asked to leave the room.

The Commission welcomes the submission of data sources that will contribute to the goals of the assessment.  This includes, but is not limited to, data on abundance, stocking, biological samples (sex, maturity, age, weight, length), life history information (growth, fecundity, natural mortality, sex ratio, spawning), stock structure (tagging data, genetics), mortality (predator diet, anthropogenic sources such as hydropower dams), and catch (harvest, discard, fishing effort). An essential need is data to inform the stock assessment of discards and bycatch in other directed fisheries (e.g. the Atlantic herring fishery). For data sets to be considered, the data must be sent in the required format, with accompanying description of methods, to the Commission by February 23, 2018.

The Data Workshop will be conducted March 5-8, 2018 at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, 20 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. This workshop will review all available data sources for American shad and identify datasets to be incorporated in the stock assessment.

View the release in its entirety here.

 

The New England fish dish that saved a nation

Shad bakes are a dance of heat and timing that have been going on for generations up and down the East Coast of the United States for more than 100 years.

September 6, 2017 — Joseph Shea presides over a culinary jigsaw puzzle. He and his apprentices squat around a hexagonal fire, shifting slabs of wood with fish nailed to them against the heat. Flames lick at angled oak planks, coaxing out the oils of the American shad, Connecticut’s state fish, and cooking it to a delicate crust just steps away from where it was spawned.

At a call from the bake master, a fire-tender hoists a numbered plank from the heat source and hurries it across the lawn, where a team of workers unhinge half a dozen fish from their crucifix and pass the plate to the server with assembly-line accuracy: gill to gullet in 30 minutes or less.

This dance of heat and timing has been going on up and down the East Coast of the United States for more than 100 years. Though home-planked shad can be traced back to early 18th-Century cookbooks, large-scale shad bakes similar to Shea’s began in the late 1800s, when savvy travel marketers used the events as a way to entice an emerging middle class to the suburbs for entertainment and a taste of country life.

Today, the tradition is kept alive by civic organisations, most famously in the tiny Connecticut hamlet of Essex, which has held an annual Rotary Club shad bake since 1958.

This unique way of cooking large amounts of shad is a rite of spring in my home state of Connecticut. The filleted fish, its 1,000 tiny bones expertly removed, is nailed to boards and circled around a roaring fire. Angled in such a way and blackened by decades of reuse, the planks help release the excess fish’s oils into a pan below to make the fish light, imparting a flavour that cannot easily be replicated outside of an open fire.

The resulting delicacy, sometimes compared to a lean salmon, requires little else beyond the smoky taste of the fire – and strip of salt pork fat and a smattering of paprika for added flavour, applied to the fish before it hits the flame.

Read the full story at the BBC

NOAA Fisheries Announces Proposed Management Measures for the 2016-2018 Atlantic Herring Fishery

June 22, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries announces proposed management measures for the Atlantic Herring fishery for the 2016-2018 fishing years. The proposed catch limits for fishing years 2016 through 2018 are slightly lower than the current catch limits because the most recent assessment shows a slightly lower spawning stock biomass and a slightly higher fishing mortality.

We are also proposing to increase the catch cap limits for river herring and American shad to increase access to the fishery, while still providing sufficient protection for these species.

Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register and supplemental documents.

The comment period is open through July 21.

You may submit comments by any one of the following methods:

  • Electronic Submission: Submit all electronic public comments via the Federal eRulemaking Portal. Click the “Comment Now!” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments.
  • Mail: Submit written comments to NMFS, Greater Atlantic Regional Office, 55 Great Republic Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930. Mark the outside of the envelope “Comments on 2016-2018 Herring Specifications.”
  • Fax: (978) 281-9135, Attn: Shannah Jaburek.

Questions? Contact Jennifer Goebel at 978-281-9175 or email jennifer.goebel@noaa.gov.

Susquehanna River: Deal reached on fish, eel passage at Conowingo Dam

May 3, 2016 — Exelon Corp. has pledged in a deal announced last Monday to work to enhance spawning fish passage at Conowingo Dam over the next 50 years, seeking to revive the Susquehanna River’s meager stocks of American shad and river herring.

The Chicago-based company and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they had reached agreement to improve at least one of two fish lifts at Conowingo and meanwhile start trucking migratory shad and river herring upriver past it and three other dams in Pennsylvania.

The agreement comes after years of negotiations between the company and wildlife agencies and conservation groups, which were seeking to revive the once-legendary spawning runs of shad and herring. The number of returning fish each spring has been trending downward since the 1980s, and wildlife agencies and conservationists wanted Exelon to make potentially costly upgrades to fish lifts there as a condition of renewing its federal license to operate the hydroelectric facility.

The company’s license to operate Conowingo expired in 2014, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has extended the permit while the parties — including Maryland —attempt to hash out their differences. An even more contentious issue involves what Exelon may have to do about the buildup of nutrient-laden sediment in the dam’s reservoir, which studies have shown could complicated efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay’s water quality.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

Case for Shad & Herring Rules Circles the Drain

January 7, 2015 — (CN) – The D.C. Circuit cut the line on a case accusing the government of failing to protect ocean fish that feed New York and New Jersey eagles and striped bass.

Led by the New Jersey-based Anglers Conservation Network and its founder, Capt. Paul Eidman, the case centers on four dwindling stocks of fish – alewife, blueback herring, American shad and hickory shad – that school in the Atlantic Ocean from New York to North Carolina.

As those fish migrate up rivers during their annual spawning in the spring, they are prey for bald eagles, ospreys and other birds, like cormorants and gulls, as well as for other fish at sea and for striped bass making their annual spawning run into many of the same rivers.

The case at hand contends that there are even fewer river herrings and shads available for bigger species on the food chain, thanks to a 2013 inaction by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, one of eight established by the 1976 Fishery Conservation Act, or Magnuson-Stevens Act.

That year, the council was considering adopting Amendment 15 to add river herring and shad to the 1983 Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan.

Rather than approving the amendment, however, the council voted 10-9 to table the issue for three years while a working group studied the fish further.

The plaintiffs say this decision violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act, but U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler dismissed the complaint on Sept. 30, 2014.

A three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit affirmed Tuesday.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service