The alewife is an anadromous species of herring found in North America. It is one of the "typical" North American shads, attributed to the subgenusPomolobus of the genus Alosa. As an adult it is a marine species found in the northern West Atlantic Ocean, moving into estuaries before swimming upstream to breed in freshwater habitats, but some populations live entirely in fresh water. It is best known for its invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Here, its population surged, peaking between the 1950s and 1980s to the detriment of many native species of fish. In an effort to control them biologically, Pacific salmon were introduced, only partially successfully. As a marine fish, the alewife is a US National Marine Fisheries Service "Species of Concern".
Description
Alewife reach a maximum length of about 40 cm, but have an average length of about 25 cm. The front of the body is deep and larger than other fish found in the same waters, and its common name is said to come from comparison with a corpulent female tavernkeeper.
Gaspereau, or Gasparot. Name of a common salt-water fish of Acadia , first used, so far as I can find, by Denys in 1672. Nowhere can I find any clue to its origin. It seems not to be Indian.
Acadians named two rivers after the fish, the Gaspereau River in Nova Scotia and the Gaspereau River in New Brunswick. In eastern Massachusetts, Alewife Brook flows through Arlington, Cambridge, and Somerville to the Mystic River. The brook gives its name to the Alewife Brook Parkway and the Alewife Brook Reservation. The Red Line of Boston's T ends at the Alewife station, so the name of this fish adorns the front of every northbound Red Line train. An extensive habitat restoration and education project, combined with a fish ladder with monitoring cameras, is yielding increasing numbers of Alewife back in the improving Mystic River watershed. In the Southeast US, when sold and used as bait, the fish is often referred to as "LY". Both anadromous and landlocked forms occur. The landlocked form is also called a sawbelly or mooneye. Adult alewife are caught during their spring spawning migration upstream by being scooped out of shallow, constricted areas using large dip nets. They are the preferred bait for the spring lobster fishery in Maine, and are eaten by humans, usually smoked.
Alewife are known for their invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Alewife colonized the Great Lakes and became abundant mostly in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. They reached their peak abundance from the 1950s through the 1980s. Alewife grew in number unchecked because of the lack of a top predator in the lakes. For a time, alewife, which often exhibit seasonal die-offs, washed up in windrows on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Various species of Pacific salmon were introduced as predators. Though marginally successful, this led to the development of a salmon/alewife fishery popular with many sport anglers. In spite of such biological control methods, alewife remain implicated in the decline of many native Great Lakes species. It is also a common predator of numerous native and non-native zooplankton taxa.
Conservation
Alewife populations have seen big declines throughout much of their range. Several threats have most likely contributed to their decline, including loss of habitat due to decreased access to spawning areas from the construction of dams and other impediments to migration, habitat degradation, fishing, and increased predation due to recovering striped bass populations. In response to the declining population trend for alewives, the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, and North Carolina have instituted moratoria on taking and possession. The alewife is a US National Marine Fisheries Service Species of Concern, about which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, has some concerns regarding status and threats, but for which insufficient information is available to indicate a need to list the species under the US Endangered Species Act.
