MyFishFinder.com Just like iceshanty but warmer
Many of you are confusing landlocked alewife with anadromous alewife. Landlocked alewife are known to cause problems with salmonid fisheries, because they produce a thiaminase which causes early mortality and almost eliminates natural reproduction of trout/salmon (including lake trout). The fish grow fast, die young, and the fry swim in circles. Anadromous alewives, however, return from the ocean to spawn in ponds and lakes; the young live and grow in the lake through the summer before migrating to the estuary and eventually the ocean. Anadromous alewife populations can cause high growth rates for many fisheries, but have not been shown to have the same deleterious effects as landlocked alewives.Another thing to consider is that smelt are non-native in many waters.
Good Stuff CD,I have lived the Zebra Mussel invasion and the Goby invasion. I used to, in another life time it seems like, be a environmental consultant and scientific diver. I did a fair amount of work in Lake O in conjunction with the Nuke plants. As a diver I got to witness very closely the changes to the lake ecology over those years. I remember diving there in 1991 and you could only get visibility of maybe 15' on a good day. and the entire bottom even on solid rock was exceedingly silty. The last time I was there was 2003 to 2006. The viability was nearly unlimited you could see for over 100' on some days, and the bottom over rock was pristine, except for billions and billions of Round Goby, and at that time they had some strange virus that was killing them off at an incredible rate and caused great fear in the region that the virus would spread to other fish. The browns did indeed learn to eat the Goby. Interesting side note the Goby is now one of the pinnacle consumers. Turns out they prey heavily on Small Mouth eggs and become biocontaminated to a higher level than most fish in the lake. Crazy, crazy Eco stuff comes out of the Great Lakes, and is a great source of information when one wants to dabble in human intervention in our home lakes.Oddfish
Thanks for this additional & somewhat uniquely acquired info, Oddfish.BTW, Would you be willing to divulge just how many lifetimes you have lived, thus far?I for one, am very curious.
At least 3, 4 likely, and possibly more. Confirmed 2 adult lifetimes with a third under review, and one childhood. OD
I could be mistaken , but I thought F+G stocked a species of herring into Winnisquam last spring..?
i do enjoy the discussion on matters such as this ,it will makes us better fishermen by being aware of the impacts little things can have in a waterbody
I think the overall consensus is that we are, at the least, very apprehensive about introducing Landlocked Alewives (Not sure about the Anadromous Alewife experiment in Winnisquam) as a forage fish due to the limited data available on the long term effects they have.
The question posed by this topic..."Should 'Alewives' be used as a supplement to smelt as a forage base in our lakes?"....has generated a lot of interesting comments and concerns....I, for one, have learned much, thanks to some of our more knowledeable IS members, about the Alewife and other invasive species, i.e., Goby (definetly don't want these, if you do fish the Great Lakes, be SURE to flush your motor cooling system and bilges out before returning to NH), Zebra Mussels, etc... I think the overall consensus is that we are, at the least, very apprehensive about introducing Landlocked Alewives (Not sure about the Anadromous Alewife experiment in Winnisquam) as a forage fish due to the limited data available on the long term effects they have. This being the case, should we focus our attention and dollars on stabilizing and supplementing the smelt population in our lakes? Are we willing, as fishermen, to accept a 'coldwater' license fee increase to help accomplish this? Are there any decommisioned hatcheries that could be activated to raise smelts? Maybe the 'Supervisor' could shed some light on the efforts NHF&G are making in this area.I'm not informed enough to comment on land locked alewives or river herring. I can say that NHF&G (Don Miller & John Viar) biologists keep track of the fish to forage ratios in Winni at least. Having said that, I believe the last couple years at least, they have had issues with the boat that does the forage monitoring? Anyway. the salmon rearing & stocking is supposed to be based on forage numbers & fall netting results. NH salmon are a put & take fishery, as their natural, surviving, reproduction is minimal. YOY white perch are also a preferred bait for salmon. To maintain the delicate fish to forage balance in each of NH's salmon lakes has to be a feat in itself. Some of these lakes are managed for trophies & others quantity. To keep everyone happy on which should be which, is more delicate than maintaining the fish to forage ratios. This has been witnessed on other boards. I believe (maybe 70's) smelt were imported from NY, to Winni, with the help of a no longer existing salmon group. I'm not aware of any more recent stockings? I think with, this very civil thread, it would be great for Supervisor or any NHF&G biologist to help to inform us. TR
Actually, there are quite a few data and published articles out there that describe the effects of introduced, landlocked alewife in many different places. For the most part, it is all the same. Alewives change the food web in the lake primarily by consuming the largest zooplankton. They become a food source for the predator fish (other food sources become less common and/or relatively undesirable), but bring about instability of a fishery due not only to their rapidly fluctuating populations but also by hindering natural reproduction of many species by causing a thiamine deficiency. In summary, landlocked alewives bring about fisheries that produce rapidly growing fish that tend to get quite large, but the fisheries themselves become put-and-take. People are happy catching big fish, but the State would need to put extra money into the fishery every year to maintain it, plus one loses the whole aspect of a "wild" fishery which can be important these days due to uniqueness. Another thing to consider with alewives is that once people get acquainted to the larger fish that are produced from alewife-based lakes, they tend to want to see it elsewhere and there becomes a "bucket biologist" problem...and the few wild fisheries that are left suffer for it. As for the smelts, I don't really know much about being able to actually maintain a "stable" population, if that is even possible. Recall that they are non-native in many areas, and even though they sustain salmon fisheries (also primarily non-native), having stability may not always be an option. But I guess this brings us all back to the original question: Are alewives the answer? I would like to present a question with another question, however: "An answer to what?". What are we really trying to fix? If we are trying to restore the connection between inland and coastal food webs, I would say the answer would be a resounding "YES!". Anadromous alewives were historically a mode of nutrient transportation from ocean to inland waters, and also from inland waters back to the ocean. But if we are trying to create a new forage base for landlocked waters, "Definitely not!", due to profound changes to the food web and increased reliance on stocking to retain fisheries.
Easier to understand, if you're French Canadian, but a pic is worth a thousand words!This alewive die off is in a bay in Northern Champlain, in Quebec.Happened this Dec, due to quick temp changes in the shallow water (under the ice) where they were hanging. Another big die off was reported farther south in VT. http://www.lapresse.ca/environnement/201301/17/01-4612407-une-hecatombe-de-poissons-a-philipsburg.php
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Topic: Are "Alewives" the answer? (Read 7960 times)
