Patrick Keliher, director of the DMR’s Bureau of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat, confirmed the importance of alewives as prey throughout history; as vehicles for transferring nutrients from the marine system to less-productive freshwater environments; and as an important source of bait for the lobster industry. Prior to the Maine Legislature’s closure of the St. Croix fishways in 1995, the alewife run was one of the “greatest success stories of anadromous fisheries in Maine,” said Steven Shepard, a board member of the Maine Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of American in Holden. “The run had built up to more than two million fish simply by providing access to good habitat and without a lot of effort and expense from fisheries managers,” Shepard said. The closing of the fishways was a unique law confined to the St. Croix River, which forms the eastern boundary between Maine and Canada, and related at the time to the area’s thriving sportfishing economy, a cornerstone of the area’s communities. In the 1980s, the re-introduction and rapid expansion of alewives into the St. Croix system, in the wake of fishway improvements, coincided with a sharp decline in smallmouth bass stocks, severely impacting local fishing lodges. When the fishways were closed, the alewife population crashed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that restoring native diadromous fish to their historic habitat is a priority for their agency. Alewife fishways on the St. Croix are a critical first step toward the recovery of the watershed, IFW’s Gulf of Maine Coastal Program project leader Stewart Fefer said. Proponents said that, as a central forage species, the return of alewives can only help the larger ecosystem, which will in turn benefit those who make their livelihood from the area. “River herring are the necessary nutrient providers which are the base of a much larger ecosystem than just the river itself,” said Douglas “Cap” Introne, assistant director of the Stable Isotope Laboratory/Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine in Orono. “Their return influences the river, the St. Croix estuary, and even the ocean itself in the Gulf of Maine with ramifications for Atlantic salmon restoration, codfish an haddock restoration, bait for the lobster industry, eels, shad, striped bass, and forage for the guides’ smallmouth bass, eagles, mink , and all parts of the foodweb, including we humans.” Introne also took issue with the assertion of the area’s guides that alewives would negatively impact salmon and smallmouth bass. Recreational fisheries for the two species have long coincided with river herring, he said. Others said that a healthy population of alewives and other diadromous fish is critical to the recovery of Maine’s Atlantic salmon, a federally listed endangered species. “We believe that the opposition to alewives comes from a misunderstanding of how they interact with other species,” the DMR’s Keliher said. Keliher said that a 2006 study of interaction between alewife and smallmouth bass, using data collected by IFW biologists, showed the presence of alewives did not harm smallmouth bass in terms of length, condition or growth; alewives are not significant predators on smallmouth bass; competition for food between the two species was not significant in most areas; and, in one lake where the diets of the two species were similar, populations of both species had co-existed for more than a century. “After a thorough review of the science and consultation between DIFW and DMR, the agencies are confidant no negative impact to local fisheries will occur,” Keliher said.
Wheaton said the area’s traditional way of life and livelihood was threatened during the 1980s when many lake fisheries collapsed. “The collapse closely correlated with increasingly large runs of anadromous alewives that entered our lakes when navigational barriers were removed downstream,” Wheaton said. “When the sea run alewives were blocked from their upstream migration due to an act of the Maine Legislature, our freshwater fisheries immediately began to recover.” Dale Tobey, president of the Grand Lake Stream Guides Association and representing 78 licensed guides, said sportfishing in the area represents a $5.5 million industry that furnishes employment for at least 142 people. “We, the guides, feel this is not a bill to restore, but a bill to introduce a non-native invasive fish into the St. Croix waster-shed, Tobey said. Opponents also said alewives can carry an enzyme that is devastating to salmonids, affecting survival and reproductive rates. Passamaquoddy Tribal governor William Nicholas said the legislation represents a breakdown in communication between the state and the tribe. “The question is: Why hasn’t the Passamaquoddy Tribe, a sovereign nation with physical, economic and cultural ties to the affected water, been notified or contacted?” he asked. Nicholas said the DMR fails to understand the impacts alewives will have on reservation waters. In related developments, the Marine Resources Committee took information from Atlantic herring organizations, including the Small Pelagic Group in Camden, and Ocean Spray Partnership and New England Fish Company in Portland. The organizations in February submitted to the state’s Congressional delegation a request for an appropriation of $625,000 to enhance data collection research and survey capabilities for assessing and managing the Atlantic herring and Atlantic mackerel resources. The goal is to investigate abundance and distribution, using industry-cooperative hydroacoustic surveys, conduct commercial catch sampling and bycatch surveys. At meetings of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Atlantic herring midwater trawl fleet has been named as a possible culprit contributing to the depletion of river herring. In a statement to the committee, the Sustainable Fisheries Coalition, a group of fishing vessel owners and processors from Maine to New Jersey, said it is inaccurate to single out midwater trawlers a significant cause of the decline of river herring. |
