April 29, 2016 — Efforts to improve American shad and river herring populations in the Susquehanna River have increased thanks to a 50-year agreement announced on Monday by Exelon Generation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Josh Tryninewski, a biologist for the state Fish and Boat Commission who manages the shad restoration effort, said the river’s shad population has been declining since 2001 because of limited access to adequate spawning habitats.
Shad and river herring are returning to their spawning on the Susquehanna at their lowest numbers since the 1980s, according to Exelon’s news release. The population peaked in 2001, when hundreds of thousands of shad and river herring passed Exelon’s Conowingo Dam, but that number has dwindled to 1,500 shad and 1,000 herring per year.