2010 adaptive management plan for St. Croix River |
| Alewives: photo by Doug Watts |
In 1987 more than 2.6 million alewives swam up the St. Croix River to reach their ancestral breeding grounds. In 2008, only 12,261 alewives returned from the Atlantic. This extraordinary depletion of a valuable resource was caused by a Maine state law that closed fishways at the Grand Falls and Woodland Dams along the river. In 2008, the Maine Legislature again voted to keep alewives out of 98 percent of their ancestral waters, only opening up passage at the Woodland Dam, the second lowest dam on the St. Croix River.
Alewives are a critical component of river ecosystems in Maine and New Brunswick. They serve as a crucial food source for numerous species of fish and birds and are prized bait for lobstermen and ground fishermen. Unfortunately, opposition from a group of freshwater fishing guides has convinced Maine legislators over the past decade that alewives will hurt smallmouth bass, a non-native species in Maine that is popular with some anglers. Peer-reviewed science has demonstrated that sea-run alewives pose no threat to smallmouth bass, and in fact the two species coexist in lakes throughout Maine and the Northeast (1).
The International Joint Commission (“IJC”) has the power to authorize dams on the St. Croix River under the Boundary Waters Treaty. NRCM has joined with the Atlantic Salmon Federation, Maine Rivers, and 47 other organizations from the U.S. and Canada in requesting that the IJC to use its authority to require that the dams on the St. Croix River be operated in a fashion to allow unrestricted alewife passage. Restoration of fish passage for alewives on the St. Croix will provide tremendous ecological and economic benefits for the region.
 |
photo by Jon Allen |
Alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) are an anadromous fish species, meaning that they are spawned in freshwater lakes and ponds and then travel to the ocean where they grow and reach sexual maturity before returning to freshwater to reproduce and thus complete their lifecycle. Alewives show a high degree of fidelity to their natal waters and without access to these waters, genetically unique populations of the species can be lost.
Virtually every river in Maine historically had an alewife population and the species is a critical component of our state’s river ecosystems. They are a valuable source of marine-derived nutrients and are a critical food source for a wide variety of other fish, bird, and mammal species, including: striped bass, cod, pollock, largemouth and smallmouth bass, trout and salmon, ospreys, eagles, kingfishers, cormorants, mink, otter, seals, and dolphins.
Alewives are not just ecologically important, but are also economically valuable. They are a primary bait source for Maine’s lobster industry, and commercial alewife fishermen generate substantial income from the harvesting of alewives each spring. Across the state, dozens of Maine municipalities have commercial harvesting rights to alewives on approximately 40 coastal streams and rivers. Thus, alewives provide significant revenues to the towns that lease the fishing privileges to fishermen.
In recent years, significant private and public resources have been spent investigating the interactions between alewives and smallmouth bass in the St. Croix watershed. This science has demonstrated beyond a doubt that the presence of sea-run alewives poses no threat to smallmouth bass in the St. Croix drainage. In fact, the data from these studies show that in some lakes bass populations benefit from having alewives present. This science was peer-reviewed by numerous state, federal, and independent fisheries experts from both sides of the border.
Alewife restoration has been a tremendous success in the Kennebec River and in many other rivers across Maine and New England. Restoring the alewife population in the St. Croix River would provide real ecological and economic benefits for Downeast Maine.
1 See T.V. Willis et. al, 2006. Two reports on alewives in the St. Croix River at: www.mainerivers.org/MaineRiversStCroixReportFinal.pdf. See also F.W. Kircheis, et al. Analysis of Impacts Related to the Introduction of anadromous Alewife into a small Freshwater Lake in Central Maine, Main DIFW, Maine DMR, Main DEP (2004).
