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Alewife Fishery Uniting to Fight Anticipated Moratorium

March 05, 2008 - Scattered along the Maine coast, alewife fishermen for years have worked in isolation. But not anymore. For the first time in decades, they are getting organized -- learning one another's names, holding meetings, creating phone lists and writing letters.

They are gearing up to fight a possible moratorium on the catch, which supplies fresh bait to Maine's lobstermen at a time of year of when supplies of salted herring are low. Not only could a ban mean a loss of income, it also could mean the end of a fishery that has been part of Maine cultural and economic heritage since settlers arrived in the 1600s, the fishermen say.

They contend Maine stocks are doing just fine. But the silvery little fish migrate to the open ocean and up and down the East Coast, and in the larger scheme of things, the alewife and its nearly identical cousin -- the blueback herring -- are in trouble. Commercial landings of the two species, which together are known as "river herring," have fallen 90 percent on the East Coast, according to Erika Robbins, a staff member of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

The significance of the decline goes beyond the fishery. Alewives are a source of food for many species, including bald eagles, osprey and mink, as well as groundfish in the Gulf of Maine.

Alewives are the "passenger pigeons of the sea," said Theodore Willis, a research scientist at the University of Southern Maine, referring to a species that once numbered in the billions but became extinct because of over-hunting and deforestation. The alewife "is not extinct yet," he said. "But the numbers are dropping and dropping fast."

Scientists don't know why the population is plummeting, although they suspect several factors, including overfishing, increased environmental degradation of watersheds, and that the fish are being swept up in the nets of midwater herring and mackerel trawlers working in the open ocean.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and North Carolina have all shut down their commercial herring fisheries.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission -- created by the federal government and made up of representatives from each East Coast state -- is now amending the interstate fishery management plan and considering several options, including requiring ocean trawlers to report bycatch, putting more observers on trawlers, and the elimination of commercial fisheries unless a state can demonstrate that a stock can support one.

The commission likely will make a decision at the end of the year, and the new plan would go into effect for the 2009 season. The commission plans a study examining the health and size of East Coast stocks.

Maine fishermen and fishery managers say Maine's stocks are relatively stable and that their fishery should be left alone.

"Maine has a well-managed fishery overall, and the federal government doesn't have the slightest idea of what's going on in the population," said Peter Roberts, who serves on a town committee that manages the alewife fishery for Center Pond in Phippsburg. "Unless they have some science behind them, they ought to sit back and shut up."

Every spring when alewife and blueback herring swim up Maine's brooks and rivers to spawn, fishermen are waiting with dip nets and weirs.

About 35 towns have exclusive rights to harvest river herring on 39 individual streams and rivers, from Cape Elizabeth to Perry, near the Canadian border. Fishermen bid on the right to fish in each town, and the communities earn revenue from the runs.

The alewife fishery in Maine is four centuries old. Until widespread use of refrigeration in the 20th century, the bulk of the harvest was for human consumption. Alewife herring was a critical source of fresh food that arrived at a time of year when winter food supplies were low.

Even today, Maine law requires towns to supply widows and orphans with two free bushels of herring if they ask.

Many older Mainers still enjoy eating smoked alewife, which tastes like canned smoked kippered herring, said Kenneth "Bucket" Davis, who manages the herring fishery for East Machias.

The alewife harvest occurs from April to June. Maine law does not limit a fisherman's catch but does require fishermen to allow the herring free passage three days a week. North Carolina's river-herring catch used to be larger than that of any other state. But since it closed its fishery last year, Maine fishermen catch the most.

Maine's landings fell dramatically in the 1970s into the '90s, from 3.4 million pounds in 1976 to 150,000 pounds in 1994. Since then, landings have slowly increased, but the level remains much lower than it was three decades ago.

In 2006, Maine fishermen landed 1.2 million pounds of river herring, worth about $184,000.

In the 1970s, the alewife harvest provided 6 percent of the annual bait needs for Maine's lobstermen, and 30 percent to 50 percent of the bait used during the spring. With decreased returns of adult alewives in recent years, only about 1 percent of lobstermen's bait needs can be filled with alewives.

But the alewife is still critical to the Maine lobster industry in the spring, said Jeffrey Pierce, a Dresden fishermen who has been leading the effort to organize the Maine alewife fishermen. He said many lobstermen switch to alewife bait because it's fresher than the old supplies of salted herring and they believe lobsters like it better.

"We can't feed our lobsters grass clippings," Pierce said. "They aren't vegetarians." Pierce represented fishermen at a panel discussion on alewives Saturday at the Fishermen's Forum in Rockland. One topic was municipal and state efforts to install and maintain fish ladders.

James Brinkler, who helps manage the alewife fishery at Damariscotta Mills, said all income from the fishery there is used to maintain a fish ladder at a small hydroelectric dam. The ladder allows alewives to climb 42 feet from Great Salt Bay to Damariscotta Lake.

Usually beginning in May and lasting about a month, thousands of alewives crowd the waterway trying to find the strongest current to swim against. The management goal of the fishery is to get as many fish into Damariscotta Lake as possible, Brinkler said. A ban on a commercial harvest would impede that effort, he said.

"If they stop us from harvesting," he said, "then we don't have the funds to repair the ladder."



SOURCE: Kennebec Journal

DATE: 03-02-2008


Lakes: Damariscotta Lake
Regions: Calais, Mid Coast, Downeast


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