Alewife

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Alewife
Alosa pseudoharengus.jpg
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Clupeiformes
Family: Clupeidae
Genus: Alosa
Subgenus: Pomolobus
Species:
A. pseudoharengus
Binomial name
Alosa pseudoharengus
(A. Wilson, 1811) [1]
Synonyms
  • Clupea vernalis Mitchill, 1815

The alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) is an anadromous species of herring found in North America. It is one of the "typical" North American shads, attributed to the subgenus Pomolobus of the genus Alosa. [2] As an adult it is a marine species found in the northern West Atlantic Ocean, moving into estuaries before swimming upstream to breed in freshwater habitats, but some populations live entirely in fresh water. It is best known for its invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Here, its population surged, peaking between the 1950s and 1980s to the detriment of many native species of fish. In an effort to control them biologically, Pacific salmon were introduced, only partially successfully. As a marine fish, the alewife is a US National Marine Fisheries Service "Species of Concern".

Herring Forage fish, mostly belonging to the family Clupeidae

Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family Clupeidae.

North America Continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere

North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered by some to be a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea.

Subgenus taxonomic rank

In biology, a subgenus is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.

Contents

Description

Alewives reach a maximum length of about 40 cm (16 in), but have an average length of about 25 cm (10 in). The front of the body is deep and larger than other fish found in the same waters, and its common name is said to come from comparison with a corpulent female tavernkeeper ("ale-wife"). [3]

Etymology-Folklore

In southwestern Nova Scotia, it is called a kiack (or kyack). [4] In Atlantic Canada it is known as the gaspereau, from the Acadian French word gasparot, first mentioned by Nicolas Denys. William Francis Ganong, New Brunswick biologist and historian, wrote:

Nova Scotia Province of Canada

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime Provinces, and one of the four provinces that form Atlantic Canada. Its provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest of Canada's ten provinces, with an area of 55,284 square kilometres (21,300 sq mi), including Cape Breton and another 3,800 coastal islands. As of 2016, the population was 923,598. Nova Scotia is Canada's second-most-densely populated province, after Prince Edward Island, with 17.4 inhabitants per square kilometre (45/sq mi).

Atlantic Canada Region in Canada

Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces, is the region of Canada comprising the four provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec: the three Maritime provinces – New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island – and the easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The population of the four Atlantic provinces in 2016 was about 2,300,000 on half a million km2. The provinces combined had an approximate GDP of $121.888 billion in 2011.

Acadian French dialect

Acadian French is a variety of Canadian French originally associated with the Acadians of what is now the Maritimes in Canada. It is still spoken by the Francophone population of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, by small minorities on the Gaspé Peninsula and the Magdalen Islands of Quebec as well as in pockets of Francophones in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. In the United States, it is spoken in the Saint John Valley of northern Aroostook County, Maine. Besides standard French, New England French is the predominant form of French spoken elsewhere in Maine.

Gaspereau, or Gasparot. Name of a common salt-water fish of Acadia (also called alewife), first used, so far as I can find, by Denys in 1672. Nowhere can I find any clue to its origin. It seems not to be Indian. [5]

Acadians named two rivers after the fish, the Gaspereau River in Nova Scotia and the Gaspereau River in New Brunswick.

Gaspereau River river in Canada

The Gaspereau River is a river in Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada.

New Brunswick province in Canada

New Brunswick is one of four Atlantic provinces on the east coast of Canada. According to the Constitution of Canada, New Brunswick is the only bilingual province. About two-thirds of the population declare themselves anglophones, and one third francophones. One-third of the population describes themselves as bilingual. Atypically for Canada, only about half of the population lives in urban areas, mostly in Greater Moncton, Greater Saint John and the capital Fredericton.

In eastern Massachusetts, Alewife Brook flows through Arlington, Cambridge, and Somerville to the Mystic River. The brook gives its name to the Alewife Brook Parkway and the Alewife Brook Reservation. The Red Line (MBTA) of Boston's T ends at the Alewife station, so the name of this fish adorns the front of every northbound Red Line train. An extensive habitat restoration and education project, combined with a fish ladder with monitoring cameras, is yielding increasing numbers of Alewife back in the improving watershed. [6]

Mystic River river in Massachusetts, USA

The Mystic River is a 7.0-mile-long (11.3 km) river in Massachusetts, in the United States. Its name derives from the Wampanoag word muhs-uhtuq, which translates to "big river." In an Algonquian language, missi-tuk means "a great river whose waters are driven by waves," alluding to the original tidal nature of the Mystic. The resemblance to the English word mystic is a coincidence.

Alewife Brook Parkway United States historic place

Alewife Brook Parkway is a short parkway in Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It begins at Fresh Pond in Cambridge, and heads north on the east bank of Alewife Brook, crossing into West Somerville and ending at the Mystic River on the Medford town line, where it becomes Mystic Valley Parkway. The entire length of Alewife Brook Parkway is designated as part of Massachusetts Route 16 (Route 16), while the southernmost sections are also designated as part of Route 2 and U.S. Route 3 (US 3). It is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation responsible for bridge maintenance.

Alewife Brook Reservation state park in Massachusetts

Alewife Brook Reservation is a Massachusetts state park and urban wild located in Cambridge, Arlington, and Somerville. The park is managed by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation and was established in 1900. It is named for Alewife Brook, which was also historically known as Menotomy River, a tributary of the Mystic River.

In the Southeast US, when sold and used as bait, the fish is often referred to as "LY". Both anadromous and landlocked forms occur. The landlocked form is also called a sawbelly or mooneye (although this latter name is more commonly applied to Hiodon spp.).

Adult alewives are caught during their spring spawning migration upstream by being scooped out of shallow, constricted areas using large dip nets. They are the preferred bait for the spring lobster fishery in Maine, [7] and are eaten by humans, usually smoked.

In the North American Great Lakes

Alewives are perhaps best known for their invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Alewives colonized the Great Lakes and became abundant mostly in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. They reached their peak abundance from the 1950s through the 1980s. Alewives grew in number unchecked because of the lack of a top predator in the lakes (lake trout were essentially wiped out around the same time by overfishing and the invasion of the sea lamprey). For a time, alewives, which often exhibit seasonal die-offs, washed up in windrows on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Various species of Pacific salmon (first coho, and later the Chinook salmon) were introduced as predators. Though marginally successful, this led to the development of a salmon/alewife fishery popular with many sport anglers.[ citation needed ]

In spite of such biological control methods, alewives remain implicated in the decline of many native Great Lakes species. It is also a common predator of numerous native and non-native zooplankton taxa ( Bythotrephes longimanus , Leptodiaptomus ashlandi , Leptodiaptomus minutus , Leptodiaptomus sicilis , and Leptodora kindtii ).[ citation needed ]

Conservation

Alewife populations have seen big declines throughout much of their range. Several threats have most likely contributed to their decline, including loss of habitat due to decreased access to spawning areas from the construction of dams and other impediments to migration, habitat degradation, fishing, and increased predation due to recovering striped bass populations.

In response to the declining population trend for alewives, the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, and North Carolina have instituted moratoria on taking and possession.

The alewife is a US National Marine Fisheries Service Species of Concern [8] , about which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, has some concerns regarding status and threats, but for which insufficient information is available to indicate a need to list the species under the US Endangered Species Act.

Related Research Articles

Atlantic salmon species of fish

The Atlantic salmon is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Salmonidae. It is found in the northern Atlantic Ocean, in rivers that flow into the north Atlantic and, due to human introduction, in the north Pacific Ocean. Atlantic salmon have long been the target of recreational and commercial fishing, and this, as well as habitat destruction, has reduced their numbers significantly; the species is the subject of conservation efforts in several countries.

Chinook salmon species of fish

The Chinook salmon is the largest species in the Pacific salmon genus Oncorhynchus. The common name refers to the Chinookan peoples. Other vernacular names for the species include king salmon, Quinnat salmon, spring salmon, chrome hog, and Tyee salmon. The scientific species name is based on the Russian common name chavycha (чавыча).

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The American shad 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 is not closely related to the other North American shads. Rather, it seems to form a lineage that diverged from a common ancestor of the European taxa before these diversified.

<i>Alosa</i> genus of fishes

Alosa is a genus of fish, the river herrings, in the family Clupeidae. Along with other genera in the subfamily Alosinae, they are generally known as shads. They are distinct from other herrings by having a deeper body and spawning in rivers. Several species can be found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Also, several taxa occur in the brackish-water Caspian Sea and the Black Sea basin. Many are found in fresh water during spawning and some are only found in landlocked fresh water.

Gaspereau, Nova Scotia human settlement in Nova Scotia, Canada

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Lessepsian migration

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Naugatuck River river in the United States of America

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Hickory shad species of shad

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References

  1. Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2006). "Alosa pseudoharengus" in FishBase. April 2006 version.
  2. Faria, R.; Weiss, S. & Alexandrino, P. (2006): A molecular phylogenetic perspective on the evolutionary history of Alosa spp. (Clupeidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution40(1): 298–304. doi : 10.1016/j.ympev.2006.02.008 (HTML abstract)
  3. Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition
  4. "Nova Scotia Fisheries: Alewife". Archived from the original on August 24, 2007.
  5. Ganong, W. F. (1910). "The Identity of the Animals and Plants Mentioned by the Early Voyagers to Eastern Canada and Newfoundland". Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada. Royal Society of Canada. III: 218. OL   7061668M . Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  6. Mystic River Herring Monitoring project
  7. Maine Dept of Marine Resources. "Maine River Herring Fact Sheet". Archived from the original on 2011-09-07.
  8. http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/concern/

Further reading