Status of Hudson River Fishes: Local and Regional

PerspectivesKarin E. Limburg, SUNY-ESF

Kathryn A. Hattala, Amanda L. Higgs, Andrew W. Kahnle, Hudson River

Fisheries Unit, NYSDECRobert E. Schmidt, Simon’s Rock of

BardJohn R. Waldman, CUNY Queens

College

From Benson Lossing’s The Hudson From the Wilderness to the Sea (1866)

“The Big Three”

“The Big 7”

Sturgeons

(Kahnle et al 1998, Pikitch et al. 2005)

Sturgeons are long-lived, irregular spawners

Makes them extremely sensitive to overfishing

0

50

100

150

200

250

1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Kg

x 10

00Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus)

Reported landings in NYS (NYSDEC)

1996 – NYSDEC closed state fisheries

1998 – ASMFC closed all other state fisheries

2012 NMFS lists as Endangered

Monday – new report out!

Shortnose sturgeon –Federally protected by ESA since 1971

Maryland DNR

The American shad (Alosa sapidissima)

Once America’s 2nd most important commercial fishery – where are they now?

- Overfished repeatedly from 1880s to the 1990s - All NY fisheries remain closed since 2010.

American Shad Landings - NYS

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Land

ings

, Met

ric T

onne

s

Empirical Spawning Stock Biomass1985-2011

Based on HRG Monitoring Program Egg Index (K. Hattala, NYSDEC)

DEC’s Hudson River Fisheries Unit has been monitoring shad with in-river tagging studies for past few years. Have seen which habitats they are found on in spawning grounds….

(A. Higgs, NYSDEC)

mud

gravel

sand

Habitat studies of larval American shad by C. Nack

Will follow up on hurricane impacts

Revenge of the shad!

River Herring

alewife

blueback herring

River Herring Landings in U.S., 1880-2010

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Met

ric T

ons

State and US fishery statistics

Fishin

g up

Fishing down…!

River herring

Compare U.S. shad and river herring catches – note difference in scales – factor of 10-20X higher R.H.

Met

ric to

ns p

er y

ear

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

Shad

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Looking for the baseline: American shad

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

1800 1825 1850 1875 1900 1925 1950 1975 2000

Met

ric to

ns

Just like American shad, the river herring catches in the 1880s were greatly reduced from earlier times…but how much reduced?

Records from a single river (Potomac) – upwards of 20 million shad/year caught

River Herring Harvests in New York waters, 1904-2010

0

50

100

150

200

25019

04

1910

1916

1922

1928

1934

1940

1946

1952

1958

1964

1970

1976

1982

1988

1994

2000

2006

Land

ings

, Met

ric T

onne

s

NYS

Marine Dist.

Hudson

Data assembled by NYSDEC

Mohawk River blueback

River Herring Total Lengths, mm

200

220

240

260

280

300

320

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Tota

l Len

gth,

mm Alewife

Blueback

Collecting blueback herring in Hudson & Mohawk, 1999-2001

Collecting blueback herring in Mohawk, 2012

Photo: Scott Wells

Early (1999-2000) vs. Curren t (2012) O bserva tions o f Blueback Herr ing , Hudson and Mohawk R ivers

No

of o

bsE

ra: E

arly

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Se x: M

Era

: Cur

rent

1 9 02 0 0

2 1 022 0

23 02 4 0

2 5 026 0

27 02 8 0

2 9 030 0

31 00

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Se x: F

19 020 0

2 1 02 2 0

2 3 024 0

25 02 6 0

2 7 02 8 0

29 030 0

3 1 0

Males Females

1999-2000

2012

N = 73 N = 81

N = 159 N = 70

Sex ratios have skewed too

Current consensus – 1st coast-wide stock assessment completed for ASMFC (2012)

The Striped Bass

Maine to N. Carolina

Source: ASMFC

Female Striped Bass, Age 8+

0102030405060708090

10019

76   

1979

   

1982

   

1985

   

1988

   

1991

   

1994

   

1997

   

2000

   

2003

   

2006

   

2009

   

2012

   

Spaw

ning

Sto

ck In

dex ASMFC coast-wide

management restrictions put in place

Source: NYSDEC

A good news story, for a change!

Recent studies by Dave Secor et al. tracking where HR stripers come and go…

www.pbs.org

The American Eel

Regional Indices: Hudson River

Glass eel “product”

“…4800-5300 pieces (glass eels) per kg, depending on time of season ordered”

Region wide, some causes of eel decline:

Lucrative!! $2600/lb (2012)

Nematode infection rate(Anguillicola

crassus)

Photo and data: Wendy Morrison

ASMFC eel technical review board, 2006

Hydropower impacts?

Glooskapandthefrog.org

1850 1900 1950 2000

*not including dams missing dates

Dams Over Time*

Source: Swaney et al. (2006), in Hudson River Fishes and Their Environment

0

5

10

15

20

25

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67

TL cm

Num

ber o

f Eel

s

B

Total Length, cm

Number of eels caught in ladder trap

Sizes of eels caught in ladder trap

Experimental eel ladder – operated by Bob Schmidt & colleagues on Saw Kill since 2006

Citizen Science:The Art of Engaging Folks in GLASS EEEEELS!(monitoring, that is)

Photos: NYSDEC; and two facebook sites

What about the other 205 species logged in for the Hudson River

estuary?

news.nationalgeographic.com

…and the new-ish, “Gang of 20” – the non-native predators…with little to no information about their status!