The Shad Foundation is an international non-profit
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
organization established in 1996 for the study, protection, and celebration of
shads around the world. Currently, there are more than 30 recognized shad species worldwide.
[ tp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/ac482e/ac482e27.pdf Vol.7. Clupeoid fishes of the world (Suborder Clupeoidei) by Peter J.P. Whitehead/ref> Shad, which are members of the herring family, are widely distributed, and many are anadromous, meaning that they migrate from fresh to salt water as juveniles and return to freshwater for the express purpose of spawning. Many species are threatened by water pollution, overfishing, habitat destruction, and obstacles to migration, such as dams.
]
How it started
In the summer of 1995, Rich Hinrichsen and Curtis Ebbesmeyer
Curtis Charles Ebbesmeyer (born April 24, 1943) is an American oceanographer based in Seattle, Washington. In retirement, he has studied the movement of flotsam to track ocean currents.
He gained public attention by his reporting of studies of ...
peered into a fish ladder through an algae-stained window, hoping to witness a great biologic event: the return of the Columbia River
The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...
's 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 ...
. The fish ladders at Bonneville Dam
Bonneville Lock and Dam consists of several run-of-the-river dam structures that together complete a span of the Columbia River between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington at River Mile 146.1. The dam is located east of Portland, Oregon, ...
were in fact filled with silver migrants, but oddly, few salmon could be counted among them. Another fish—once foreign to the Columbia—accounted for the great silvery flood: the American shad
The American shad (''Alosa sapidissima'') is a species of anadromous clupeid fish naturally distributed on the North American coast of the North Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Florida, and as an introduced species on the North Pacific coast. The ...
. American Shad made their way to the Columbia after 1871 when Seth Green planted some fry in the Sacramento River
The Sacramento River ( es, Río Sacramento) is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–S ...
, California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. By 1938, when Bonneville Dam was completed and counts at the fishways were first tallied, only 5,000 were counted. Over the next half century the American shad adult count at Bonneville Dam sometimes exceeded 3 million.,[Army Corps of Engineers fish counts and reports](_blank)
/ref> While fish managers on the Atlantic Coast of the United States struggled to save American shad runs, American shad remain depleted. But American shad on the Pacific Coast of the United States thrive greatly. Spurred on by curiosity and the discovery that there were 30+ recognized shad species world-wide Hinrichsen and Ebbesmeyer, launched the Shad Foundation.
''Shad Journal''
The Shad Foundation began by publishing the ''Shad Journal'' in 1996, which included articles on several of the shad species worldwide. The journal publishes letters, commentaries, histories, scientific articles, interviews, reviews, and philosophical and methodological items related to shad the world over. Back issues of the ''Shad Journal'' are freely available in electronic form. Today, the ''Shad Journal'' has been largely replaced by a
e-mail discussion group
Shad Meetings
2012 Paradox of the Dammed American Shad Workshop
On 8–9 June 2012, American shad researchers from both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the United States met along the Connecticut River at the S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Laboratory in Turner's Falls
Turner syndrome (TS), also known as 45,X, or 45,X0, is a genetic condition in which a female is partially or completely missing an X chromosome. Signs and symptoms vary among those affected. Often, a short and webbed neck, low-set ears, low hair ...
, , for "Paradox of the Dammed -An American shad Workshop." The goal of the workshop was to try to understand a paradox; namely, why do American shad persist in the presence of dams in Pacific coastal watersheds while dams are considered responsible for American Shad population declines in their native range? Furthermore, as an introduced species, American shad are largely ignored on the west coast, while prized in their east coast watersheds. The workshop highlighted American shad decline and restoration efforts along the east coast, and how restoration efforts might benefit from information from shad research in the species' introduced range. The workshop identified gaps in knowledge of American shad biology, and identified research questions aimed at restoration of American Shad. The workshop was sponsored by the Diadromous Species Restoration Research Network, a research coordination network funded by the National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
. A 2013 article on the role of impoundments, temperature, and discharge on the colonization of the Columbia River Basin, USA, by nonindigenous American Shad benefitted from collaborations fostered at this workshop.
2011 American Fisheries Society West Coast American Shad Symposium
A symposium was held 6 September 2011 at the American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting in Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
, USA, to share new information on the distribution, status, and trends in abundance, etc. of introduced American shad
The American shad (''Alosa sapidissima'') is a species of anadromous clupeid fish naturally distributed on the North American coast of the North Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Florida, and as an introduced species on the North Pacific coast. The ...
in Pacific coastal ecosystems. The symposium began with an overview of American shad in its non-native range. The remaining presentations focused on the Columbia River population and covered spawning migrations, the effects of increased water temperature, decreased flow, and dam construction on upstream distribution and abundance, American Shad migration timing and distribution in the Columbia River estuary, verification of a `freshwater-type' life history variant of juveniles and the effects of American shad on parasite and disease dynamics in Oregon waters. The Pacific coast of the United States has been subjected to non-native fish introductions since the 1800s. The relative impacts of these introductions on Pacific coastal ecosystems remain largely unknown. Some non-native fishes have increased their range and proliferated. For example, American shad in the Columbia River have become more numerous than all Pacific salmon species (both hatchery- and wild-origin) combined. Despite their appearance on the Pacific coast for well over a century, non-native American shad remain largely overlooked. Whether or not the introduction of American Shad has had a negative impact, positive influence or benign effect on Pacific coastal ecosystems is unknown.
2001 Shad Conference
In 2001, a conference on the status of shads worldwide was held in Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, USA. The purpose of the conference was five-fold: (1) to bring up to date the systematics of the group (2) to describe the status of individual species; (3) to synthesize global trends in shad populations; (4) to develop recommendations for management strategies, and (5) to form a network of collaborators, in research and management.
2000 First International Conference on European Shads
A conference was held 23–26 May 2000, at the Centre Condorcet of Pessac, in the urban community of Bordeaux, France. The aim of this conference was to synthesize the biological knowledge in shad populations (genus Alosa sp.) present in the East Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Black and Caspian seas.First International Conference on European Shads
/ref>
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shad Foundation
International scientific organizations
Organizations established in 1996
Nature conservation organizations based in the United States
Environmental organizations based in the United States
Alosinae