anadromous
Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...
species of
herring
Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae.
Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...
found in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
subgenus
In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.
In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between t ...
''Pomolobus'' 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
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
habitats, but some populations live entirely in fresh water. It is best known for its invasion of the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
by using the
Welland Canal
The Welland Canal is a ship canal in Ontario, Canada, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It forms a key section of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway. Traversing the Niagara Peninsula from Port Weller in St. Catharines t ...
to bypass
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe 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
''Oncorhynchus'' is a genus of fish in the family Salmonidae; it contains the Pacific salmon and Pacific trout. The name of the genus is derived from the Greek ὄγκος (ónkos, “lump, bend”) + ῥύγχος (rhúnkhos, “snout”), in r ...
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 (16 in), but have an average length of about 25 cm (10 in). 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 ("ale-wife").
Etymology and folklore
In southwestern
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
, alewife are referred to as kiacks (or kyacks). In
Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (french: provinces de l'Atlantique), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising the provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec. The four provinces are New Brunswick, Newfoundlan ...
it is known as the gaspereau, from the
Acadian French
Acadian French (french: français acadien, acadjonne) is a variety of French spoken by Acadians, mostly in the region of Acadia (region), Acadia, Canada. Acadian French has 7 regional accents, including chiac and brayon.
Phonology
Since there w ...
word ''gasparot'', first mentioned by
Nicolas Denys
Nicolas Denys (1598? – 1688) was a French-born merchant, governor, author, and settler in New France. He founded settlements at St. Pierre (now St. Peter's, Nova Scotia), Ste. Anne (Englishtown, Nova Scotia) and Nepisiquit (Bathurst, New Bru ...
.
William Francis Ganong
William Francis Ganong, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S.C., (19 February 1864 - 7 September 1941) was a Canadian biologist botanist, historian and cartographer. His botany career was spent mainly as a professor at Smith College in Northampton, Massachu ...
, New Brunswick biologist and historian, wrote:
Gaspereau, or Gasparot. Name of a common salt-water fish of Acadia
(also called alewife), 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
The Gaspereau River is a river in Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada.
It has a length of approximately 24 km from its source at Gaspereau Lake on the South Mountain south of Kentville to its mouth at Hortonville on the Minas Basin. The lowe ...
in Nova Scotia and the Gaspereau River in
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
.
In eastern Massachusetts, Alewife Brook flows through Arlington, Cambridge, and Somerville to the
Mystic River
The Mystic River is a riverU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 in Massachusetts, in the United States. In Massachusett, means "large estuary," alluding to t ...
. The brook gives its name to the
Alewife Brook Parkway
Alewife Brook Parkway is a short parkway in Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It begins at Fresh Pond in Cambridge (linking to Fresh Pond Parkway via Concord Avenue), and heads nor ...
and the
Alewife Brook Reservation
Alewife Brook Reservation is a Massachusetts state park and urban wild located in Cambridge, Arlington, and Somerville. The park is managed by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation and was established in 1900. It is named for Ale ...
. The
Red Line (MBTA)
The Red Line is a rapid transit line operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) as part of the MBTA subway system. The line runs south and east underground from Alewife station in North Cambridge through Somerville and Cam ...
of Boston's T ends at the
Alewife station
Alewife station is a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) intermodal transit station in the North Cambridge neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is the northwest terminal of the rapid transit Red Line (part of the MBTA subw ...
, 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.
Both
anadromous
Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...
and landlocked forms occur. The landlocked form is also called a sawbelly or mooneye (although this latter name is more commonly applied to ''
Hiodon
Hiodontidae, commonly called mooneyes, is a family of ray-finned fish with a single included genus ''Hiodon''. The genus comprise two living species native to North America and three to five extinct species recorded from Paleocene to Eocene age ...
'' spp.) 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.
In the North American Great Lakes
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
Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrology, Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Strait ...
and
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
. They reached their peak abundance from the 1950s through the 1980s. Alewife grew in number unchecked because the lakes lacked a top predator (
lake trout
The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...
were essentially wiped out around the same time by
overfishing
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...
and the invasion of the
sea lamprey
The sea lamprey (''Petromyzon marinus'') is a parasitic lamprey native to the Northern Hemisphere. It is sometimes referred to as the "vampire fish".
Description
The sea lamprey has an eel-like body without paired fins. Its mouth is jawless, ro ...
).
For a time, alewife, which often exhibit seasonal die-offs, washed up in
windrow
A windrow is a row of cut (mown) hay or small grain crop. It is allowed to dry before being baled, combined, or rolled. For hay, the windrow is often formed by a hay rake, which rakes hay that has been cut by a mowing machine or by scythe into a ...
s on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Various species of
Pacific salmon
''Oncorhynchus'' is a genus of fish in the family Salmonidae; it contains the Pacific salmon and Pacific trout. The name of the genus is derived from the Greek ὄγκος (ónkos, “lump, bend”) + ῥύγχος (rhúnkhos, “snout”), in r ...
(first
coho
The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientific species name is ...
, and later the
Chinook salmon
The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus ''Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ve ...
) were introduced as
predator
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
s. 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 (''
Bythotrephes longimanus
''Bythotrephes longimanus'' (also ''Bythotrephes cederstroemi''), or the spiny water flea, is a planktonic crustacean less than long. It is native to fresh waters of Northern Europe and Asia, but has been accidentally introduced and widely distr ...
'', ''
Leptodiaptomus ashlandi
''Leptodiaptomus ashlandi'' is a calanoid copepod zooplankton native to the Laurentian Great Lakes and their basin.
Distribution
''Leptodiaptomus ashlandi'' is a zooplankton species widely distributed across Canada and the northern half of the U ...
'', ''
Leptodiaptomus minutus
''Leptodiaptomus ashlandi'' is a calanoid copepod
Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), ...
'', ''
Leptodiaptomus sicilis
''Leptodiaptomus sicilis'' is a calanoid copepod native to the Laurentian Great Lakes and its basin.
Distribution
The species is found all over North America, north of Missouri, in fresh and saline waters. It is found in all the Great Lakes bu ...
'', and ''
Leptodora kindtii
''Leptodora'' is a genus containing two species of large, nearly transparent predatory water fleas. They grow up to long, with two large antennae used for swimming and a single compound eye. The legs are used to catch copepods that it comes int ...
'').
Conservation
Alewife populations have seen big declines throughout much of their
range
Range may refer to:
Geography
* Range (geographic), a chain of hills or mountains; a somewhat linear, complex mountainous or hilly area (cordillera, sierra)
** Mountain range, a group of mountains bordered by lowlands
* Range, a term used to i ...
. Several threats have most likely contributed to their decline, including loss of
habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
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
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
United States National Agricultural Library
The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries, and serves as a national library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located ...