American Shad Restoration Project
On July 18, CRWA Executive
Director, Bob Zimmerman gathered with Mary Griffin, Commissioner of the
Department of Fish and Game and Wendi Weber, Deputy Regional Director of
the Northeast Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at that the
Woerd Avenue boat launch in Waltham to celebrate the release of
approximately 464,760 American shad fry into the Charles River.
The Massachusetts
Division of Marine Fisheries (MA DMF) and U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service previously released about 450,000 shad fry into
the river on July 9, 2008; bringing the release total for the
2008 season to almost 1 million shad fry!
In 2006
and 2007, the first two years of this multi-year project to restore
American shad populations, a total over 4 million shad fry were
released. During the first year of the program CRWA staff
monitored water quality conditions throughout the
summer and fall in order to assess the quality of the habitat and
potential survival hazards for the juvenile shad. Click
here for photos of the 2006 shad stocking!
Please
consider supporting our efforts to help restore historically abundant
native shad to the Charles by "Adopting a
Shad" with a minimum contribution of $25 to CRWA.
Background
One of the
largest members of the herring family, American shad can reach up to 30 inches in
length and weigh 7-8 pounds. The shad is one of five species of anadromous fish found in the river – fish that are born in freshwater,
spend the majority of their lives in the ocean, and return to their
native freshwater to spawn in the late spring.
Shad were plentiful in the
Charles until the mid-1800s, and there are historical records
identifying shad in the river as early as 1633. After 1850, the
population began to decline due to construction of dams and the
degradation of water quality.
Currently, only small numbers of adult shad are observed in the river
each year, although the Charles should support a large, viable shad
population of up to 30,000 adult fish, based on our
target fish community work, which takes
into consideration historical records of fish in the Basin and the
community appropriate for a natural river in southern New England. The
collaborative restoration project seeks to increase the number of shad
to this target population over the next decade.
The shad restoration project is spearheaded by the Massachusetts
Division of Marine Fisheries, with assistance from CRWA. CRWA's
work on the project includes sampling juvenile fish to estimate fish
survival and establish recruitment indices, and assessing the river's
chemistry to determine the best location and timing for stocking. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been contracted by MA DMF to handle
the actual fish spawning, rearing, and release aspects of the program.
The project is intended to be a long-term, multi-year program which may
continue for eight to ten years after the first release of shad fry in
the summer of 2006.
Project Scope and Objectives
The project's goals include:
1. Restoration of a viable population of American shad;
2. Assisting to improve the ecological health of the river through the
re-introducing and support of a native species;
3. Creation of a local sport fishery for anglers.
To reach these goals, the first step is propagation of juvenile shad,
through obtaining a donor population of adult shad from the Merrimack
River near the Essex Dam in Lawrence,
 MA.
The shad fish larvae are then raised at a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
hatchery in Nashua, New Hampshire. The shad fry are marked, using a
special bath, so they can be tracked in the future.
Next, the juvenile shad fry are released into the Charles River in
the Lakes region (the Waltham and Newton area). Between 2006 and
2008, approximately 5 million shad fry were released into the river.
Beginning in 2009, the released shad will begin to
return to the river to spawn, and they will be identified and tracked by
the project coordinators.
For more information:
More fish and fisheries projects
Updated February 2008 |
WATERSHED INFO