river herring: status and threats overview karin e. limburg
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River Herring: Status and Threats Overview
Karin E. Limburg
SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry, Syracuse, NY
Outline of today’s talk:
• A bit of river herring biology and ecology
• A look at r.h. in the past
• The present situation
Two separate herring species in the subfamily Alosinae – blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis) and alewife (A. pseudoharengus)
Closely related – capable of hybridizing
Anadromous – spawn in fresh waters in spring
Migrate to sea to grow and mature – largely a “big black box” at present
Broad geographic ranges
Biology & Ecology
NYS Canal Authority
River Herring in New York State
Part of the lock and canal system on the Mohawk River (NYS Barge Canal). Every time the locks open and close, there are opportunities for fish passage.
River herring composed vast fisheries up and down coast (C. Hall will talk about Maine)
NMFS
River Herring Landings in U.S., 1880-2010
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
Me
tric
To
ns
State and US fishery statistics
River herring landings since 1950
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Ha
rve
sts,
MT
/yr
Alew ife
Blueback herring
Attempting to parse out by species
Former strong links betw. inland and marine productivity
Today, these links are greatly diminished
Current consensus – coast-wide stock assessment completed spring 2012 for ASMFC
Source: ASMFC
• 57 “Systems” on Atlantic coast– 9 categories of FI
&FD data
• 54% are blank• Only 26% of
remaining have “good” or complete (green) data– Most occurs in NE
states
State River By species Harvest Age Length Weight Repeat Spawner FI Adult FI JAI FD CPUEDamariscotta ●St. George ●Union ●Orland ●Androscoggin ● ● ●Sebasticook ● ● ●Merrymeeting Bay/Tribs ● ● ●Gulf of Maine ● ● ●Exeter/Squamscott ● ● ● ● ●Lamprey ● ● ● ● ●Winnicut ● ● ● ● ●Oyster ● ● ● ● ●Cocheco ● ● ● ● ●Taylor ● ● ● ● ●Great Bay Estuary x x xMattapoisett ● ● ●Monument ● ● ●Nemasket ● ●
Parker ● ● ●Town ● ●Agawam ●
Back ● ● ● ● ●Charles ● ● ● ● ● ●Mystic ● ● ● ● ●Quashnet ● ● ● ● ●Stony Brook ●
Gilbert Stuart ● ● ● ● ●
Nonquit ● ● ● ● ●
Buckeye Brook ●Pawcatuck x x x x ●Ocean waters ● ● ●Naragansett Bay ● ● ●Coastal ponds ● ● ●Bride Brook ● ●Connecticut River ● ●
Farmington River ● ●Thames River ● ●
NY Hudson ● ● ● ● ●
Delaware River
Delaware Bay
Nanticoke
Susquehanna xChesapeake Bay
MD, VA, DC Potomac River ●
James ●
Rappahannock ●
York ●
Albemarle Sound ●Chowan River ● ● ● ● ● ●Wynah Bay xSantee-Cooper ● x ●Savannah River xAshley-Combahee-Edisto Basin xAltamaha River xOgeechee River xSavannah River x
FL St. Mary's River
VA
NC
SC
GA
ME
NH
MA
RI
DE, NJ, PA
MD
CT
From the stock assessment report:
River herring Stock Assessment Subcommittee (SASC)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1887
1890
1893
1896
1899
1902
1905
1908
1911
1914
1917
1920
1923
1926
1929
1932
1935
1938
1941
1944
1947
1950
1953
1956
1959
1962
1965
1968
1971
1974
1977
1980
1983
1986
1989
1992
1995
1998
2001
2004
2007
2010
ME NH MA RI CT NY NJ DE MD PRFC VA NC SC
US Landings by State
SC
NC
MDME
SASC
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
1960
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
Repo
rted
Lan
ding
s (T
hous
ands
of
MT)
USA Foreign Fleets
SASC
Reported NAFO landings – large foreign fleet catches in late ’60s – early ’70s
Stock assessment looked into current sources of mortality for r.h.
For some time, bycatch (incidental catch) in marine fisheries has been suspected to be a large problem…SASC did 1st thorough assessment
Photo: Stephen McGowan, Marine PhotoBank
Bycatch evaluation
Incidental vs Inland Catches
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Met
ric T
ons
Blueback
Alewife
Inland both spp
Alewife size distributions
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
BT
MWT
NH Inland
Blueback herring
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
Fre
que
ncy
Fork length (mm)
Alewife size distributions
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
Alewife size distributions
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
BT
MWT
NH Inland
BT
MWT
NH Inland
Blueback herring
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
Blueback herring
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
Fre
que
ncy
Fork length (mm)
Relative abundance data
(size of the spawning runs) -
A mixed bag. Depends in part on length of dataset. Trends most clear in longer data sets.
Mean size of adults, size at age, and amount of repeat spawning is going down
Also from the stock assessment report:• mortality rates are higher
than most stocks can support
• directed fisheries exploitation rates are little to none
• therefore, something else is going on (e.g., bycatch, watershed impacts)
Recommendations from the stock assessment (some of many)
• Determine impacts of bycatch:
• Determine “who” is getting caught in bycatch
• Determine which stocks are vulnerable to mixed stock fisheries
• Reduce mortality!
• Monitor success of river restoration efforts
• Improve understanding of juvenile requirements
River herring distinct population segments
Data: E. Palkovacs, E. Argo, D. Hasselman
Complementary project under-way – river herring stock discrimination in NYS and rest
of coast
Carll’s River
Carman’s RiverBig Fresh Pond
Peconic River
Coxsackie (rkm 201)
Newburgh (rkm 96)
Peeble’s Isl, (Mohawk mouth, rkm 240)
Sponsored by HRF, thank you!
Water
-1.0
-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
-1.00 -0.50 0.00 0.50 1.00
Re-scaled Canonical Variate 1 (64.5%)
Re-
sca
led
Can
onic
al V
aria
te 2
(34
.9%
)Lower HR 2009
Lower HR 2010
Upper HR 2009
Upper HR 2010
Tribs 2009
Tribs 2010
LI 2009
LI 2010
87/86Sr
d18O
Ba:Ca
Sr:Ca
1 mm
Mn:Ca
Conowingo Dam(Susquehanna)
Holyoke Dam (CT River)
Watershed impacts: dams
Small dam on Quassaick Creek
2000
Maps (top left, clockwise): Dittman et al. unpub.; Hall et al. 2010; Swaney et al. 2006; damsafety.org; Wikipedia
Merrimack R.
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
1st to last dam
1st to 2nd dam
Connecticut R.
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Susquehanna
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Pas
sag
e ef
fici
ency
bet
wee
n d
ams
Passage efficiency from sea to upstream spawning grounds is not good…
Brown et al. in revision.
Stats for American shad.
And where shad cannot go, neither can river herring…unless they’re trucked
Urbanization and sprawl growth
Watershed impacts:
1988: Studied 16 tribs, in 4 “reaches” of the estuary: 1st to 9th order
2009: Growth and condition of YOY alewives reduced by urbanized watersheds (R. Monteiro et al. in
revision)
Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing process
Initiated by the NRDC
3 workshops this past summer
Decision will be made later this fall or early next year.
? !!
This project feeds into a larger project that combines genetic markers of r.h. coast-wide and oto. chem. to ID fish in marine bycatch (“who’s getting caught”)
Habitat needs…
Habitat Restoration, passage
• River herring down around historic lows – is this a critical point? Is depensation occurring?
• Efforts really needed to re-build biomass
• this means we need to reduce mortality and increase recruitment – need to address both marine and inland concerns
Take-homes:
The End!
Alewives
Hybrids found at sea
(NMFS fall trawl survey 2011)
Alewife-blueback
(“ale-back”)
Shad-blueback??
(“shad-back”)
Monument River (MA)
Mea
n T
otal
Len
gth
(mm
)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Alewife
Hudson River (NY)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Nanticoke River (MD)
Year
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Chowan River (NC)
Year
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Androscoggin River (ME)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
340
MaleFemale
Cocheco River (NH)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
340
MaleFemale
Exeter River (NH)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Lamprey River (NH)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Winnicut River (NH)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale M
ean
Tot
al L
engt
h (m
m)
Stony Brook (MA)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
Sexes Combined
Monument River (MA)
Mea
n T
otal
Len
gth
(mm
)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Hudson River (NY)
Mea
n T
otal
Len
gth
(mm
)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Nanticoke River (MD)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Chowan River (NC)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Santee-Cooper (SC)
Year
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010200
220
240
260
280
300
320
Male (Cast net)Female (Cast net)Male (Fishlift)Female (Fishlift)
St. John's River (FL)
Year
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
Blueback
Cocheco River (NH)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
340
MaleFemale
Oyster River (NH)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
340
MaleFemale
Winnicut River (NH)
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
MaleFemale
***
***
***
*** **
** **
***
*** *
SASC
Group 1
Group 2
Year
No
rma
lize
d R
un
Co
un
t
-10
12
1985 1995 2005
Gilbert_Ale
-10
12
3
1985 1995 2005
Monument_Ale
Year
No
rma
lize
d R
un
Co
un
t
-10
12
1985 1995 2005
Cocheco_Both-1
01
21985 1995 2005
Oyster_Both
1984-2010
SASC
Group 3
Year
No
rma
lized
Ru
n C
ou
nt
-10
12
1985 1995 2005
Androscoggin_Ale
-10
12
1985 1995 2005
Damariscotta_Ale
-10
12
1985 1995 2005
Lamprey_Both
1984-2010
Group 4
Year
No
rma
lize
d R
un
Co
un
t
-10
12
3
1985 1995 2005
Union_Ale
-10
12
1985 1995 2005
Monument_BB
-10
12
1985 1995 2005
Taylor_Both
01
2
1985 1995 2005
Connecticut_BB
SASC
Probably due to gregarious behavior as well as use of small systems for spawning, river herring are not as genetically distinct as shad or salmon
YOY alewife otolith from an urbanized Cape Cod watershed (Herring Brook) subject to seasonal hypoxia – with no escape…
1 mm
Alewife EAS-60, Cape Cod
0
2
4
6
8
10
0 25 50 75 100 125
Age (days)
Dai
ly in
crem
ent
w
idth
s, m
icro
ns
0.00
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
Mn:
Ca
x 1
000
Increments
Mn:Ca x 1000
5-pt moving avg of growth
Limburg, unpub. data
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