The alewife (''Alosa pseudoharengus'') is an

anadromous Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousan ...

species of

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocea ...

found in North America. It is one of the "typical" North American

shad The Alosinae, or the shads,Alosinae
subgenus In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed betw ...

''Pomolobus'' of the genus ''Alosa''. 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 Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does in ...

habitats, but some populations live entirely in fresh water. It is best known for its invasion of the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five la ...

by using the

Welland Canal The Welland Canal is a ship canal in Ontario, Canada, connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It forms a key section of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway. Traversing the Niagara Peninsula from Port Weller, Ontario, Port Weller i ...

to bypass

Niagara Falls Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Fall ...

. 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 ''Oncorhynchus'' is a genus of fish in the family Salmonidae; it contains the Pacific salmon and Pacific trout. The name of the genus is derived from the Greek ὄγκος (ónkos, “lump, bend”) + ῥύγχος (rhúnkhos, “snout”), in ...

were introduced, only partially successfully. As a marine fish, the alewife is a US National Marine Fisheries Service "Species of Concern".

Description

Alewife 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").

Etymology and folklore

In southwestern

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native En ...

, alewife are referred to as kiacks (or kyacks). In Atlantic Canada it is known as the gaspereau, from the

Acadian French Acadian French (french: français acadien, acadjonne) is a variety of French spoken by Acadians, mostly in the region of Acadia, Canada. Acadian French has 7 regional accents, including chiac and brayon. Phonology Since there was relatively lit ...

word ''gasparot'', first mentioned by Nicolas Denys.

William Francis Ganong William Francis Ganong, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S.C., (19 February 1864 - 7 September 1941) was a Canadian biologist botanist, historian and cartographer. His botany career was spent mainly as a professor at Smith College in Northampton, Massach ...

, New Brunswick biologist and historian, wrote:

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.

Acadians named two rivers after the fish, the

Gaspereau River The Gaspereau River is a river in Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It has a length of approximately 24 km from its source at Gaspereau Lake on the South Mountain south of Kentville to its mouth at Hortonville on the Minas Basin. The low ...

in Nova Scotia and the Gaspereau River in

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic Canad ...

. In eastern Massachusetts, Alewife Brook flows through Arlington, Cambridge, and Somerville to the

Mystic River The Mystic River is a riverU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 in Massachusetts, in the United States. In Massachusett, means "large estuary," alluding to t ...

. The brook gives its name to the

Alewife Brook Parkway 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 (linking to Fresh Pond Parkway via Concord Avenue), and heads nor ...

and the Alewife Brook Reservation. The

Red Line (MBTA) The Red Line is a rapid transit line operated by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) as part of the MBTA subway system. The line runs south and east underground from Alewife station in North Cambridge through Somerville and C ...

of Boston's T ends at the

Alewife station Alewife station is a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) intermodal transit station in the North Cambridge neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is the northwest terminal of the rapid transit Red Line (part of the MBTA sub ...

, 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 Mystic River watershed. Both

and landlocked forms occur. The landlocked form is also called a sawbelly or mooneye (although this latter name is more commonly applied to ''

Hiodon Hiodontidae, commonly called mooneyes, is a family of ray-finned fish with a single included genus ''Hiodon''. The genus comprise two living species native to North America and three to five extinct species recorded from Paleocene to Eocene ...

'' spp.) Adult alewife 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, and are eaten by humans, usually smoked.

In the North American Great Lakes

Alewife are known for their invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Alewife colonized the Great Lakes and became abundant mostly in

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Straits of Ma ...

and

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that ...

. They reached their peak abundance from the 1950s through the 1980s. Alewife grew in number unchecked because the lakes lacked a top predator (

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can als ...

were essentially wiped out around the same time by

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in the ...

and the invasion of the

sea lamprey The sea lamprey (''Petromyzon marinus'') is a parasitic lamprey native to the Northern Hemisphere. It is sometimes referred to as the "vampire fish". Description The sea lamprey has an eel-like body without paired fins. Its mouth is jawless, ...

). For a time, alewife, which often exhibit seasonal die-offs, washed up in

windrow A windrow is a row of cut (mown) hay or small grain crop. It is allowed to dry before being baled, combined, or rolled. For hay, the windrow is often formed by a hay rake, which rakes hay that has been cut by a mowing machine or by scythe int ...

s on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Various species of

(first

coho The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family (biology), family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientif ...

, and later the

Chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ...

) were introduced as

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...

s. Though marginally successful, this led to the development of a salmon/alewife fishery popular with many sport anglers. In spite of such biological control methods, alewife 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'').

Conservation

Alewife populations have seen big declines throughout much of their

range Range may refer to: Geography * Range (geographic), a chain of hills or mountains; a somewhat linear, complex mountainous or hilly area (cordillera, sierra) ** Mountain range, a group of mountains bordered by lowlands * Range, a term used to i ...

. Several threats have most likely contributed to their decline, including loss of

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

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, 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 The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of e ...

References

External links

Species Profile- Alewife (''Alosa pseudoharengus'')
National Invasive Species Information Center,

United States National Agricultural Library The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries, and serves as a national library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located ...