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The Sacred Alewife

 

Alewives are beginning to be restored in a few Maine rivers. The efforts of the Maine DMR and private groups are making it possible. Nearly forgotten and unknown to the average citizen today the alewife was truly ubiquitous in coastal New England not so very long ago. A larger relative of the herring, alewives poured into the rivers and lakes of New England by the billions every spring. There they spawned and left, leaving behind young that would leave for the ocean that fall by the trillions.

Throughout their life cycle alewives are food for some other animal- from many fish, to lobster, birds, bears and humans. Alewives cover the bottoms of rivers on their way home to spawn. The curious human who stops to look over the bank can verify this amazing phenomenon. There is no evidence of it, or it’s importance from a passing glance through shrink-wrap of fish on a foam slab in a super market.

This ecological disconnect on where fish come from runs all the way to the top of the fisheries management chain. It has left the foundation for a solution to the groundfish crisis in Gulf of Maine dying on the vine. Waves of dam building for sawmills, then mill power and finally electricity have blocked passage in hundreds of Maine waterways. Compounding the obstacles to restoring this keystone species are political wrangling that would be laughably absurd in their petty blindness if they were not so effective in choking off this vital piece of the ecological puzzle. One is the handful of recreational bass fishing interests that have kept parts of the St. Croix River watershed blocked to alewife passage. Another is municipal water supply politics.
The alewives know what to do, it’s humans who are in the dark. Ignorance and self-interest are at the root of the human impact. The good news is that alewives respond well to restoration efforts.

The New England Council and the federal fisheries management industry’s rebuilding efforts all add up to a negative when compared to what alewives in the rivers and lakes can offer Gulf of Maine fisheries.

Alewives spawning in these same rivers and lakes poured out the forage fish that made the Gulf of Maine the biological wonder of the 17th century world. When there are enough alewives to eat there will be enough cod to catch. If marine biologists had chosen which carved fish to hang in the Massachusetts legislature it would have been the sacred alewife.