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Status of Hudson River Fishes: Local and Regional Perspectives Karin E. Limburg, SUNY-ESF Kathryn A. Hattala, Amanda L. Higgs, Andrew W. Kahnle, Hudson River Fisheries Unit, NYSDEC Robert E. Schmidt, Simon’s Rock of Bard John R. Waldman, CUNY Queens College. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Status of Hudson River Fishes: Local and Regional
PerspectivesKarin E. Limburg, SUNY-ESF
Kathryn A. Hattala, Amanda L. Higgs, Andrew W. Kahnle, Hudson River
Fisheries Unit, NYSDECRobert E. Schmidt, Simon’s Rock of
BardJohn R. Waldman, CUNY Queens
College
From Benson Lossing’s The Hudson From the Wilderness to the Sea (1866)
“The Big Three”
“The Big 7”
Sturgeons
(Kahnle et al 1998, Pikitch et al. 2005)
Sturgeons are long-lived, irregular spawners
Makes them extremely sensitive to overfishing
0
50
100
150
200
250
1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990
Kg
x 10
00Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus)
Reported landings in NYS (NYSDEC)
1996 – NYSDEC closed state fisheries
1998 – ASMFC closed all other state fisheries
2012 NMFS lists as Endangered
Monday – new report out!
Shortnose sturgeon –Federally protected by ESA since 1971
Maryland DNR
The American shad (Alosa sapidissima)
Once America’s 2nd most important commercial fishery – where are they now?
- Overfished repeatedly from 1880s to the 1990s - All NY fisheries remain closed since 2010.
American Shad Landings - NYS
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
Land
ings
, Met
ric T
onne
s
Empirical Spawning Stock Biomass1985-2011
Based on HRG Monitoring Program Egg Index (K. Hattala, NYSDEC)
DEC’s Hudson River Fisheries Unit has been monitoring shad with in-river tagging studies for past few years. Have seen which habitats they are found on in spawning grounds….
(A. Higgs, NYSDEC)
mud
gravel
sand
Habitat studies of larval American shad by C. Nack
Will follow up on hurricane impacts
Revenge of the shad!
River Herring
alewife
blueback herring
River Herring Landings in U.S., 1880-2010
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
Met
ric T
ons
State and US fishery statistics
Fishin
g up
Fishing down…!
River herring
Compare U.S. shad and river herring catches – note difference in scales – factor of 10-20X higher R.H.
Met
ric to
ns p
er y
ear
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
Shad
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
Looking for the baseline: American shad
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
1800 1825 1850 1875 1900 1925 1950 1975 2000
Met
ric to
ns
Just like American shad, the river herring catches in the 1880s were greatly reduced from earlier times…but how much reduced?
Records from a single river (Potomac) – upwards of 20 million shad/year caught
River Herring Harvests in New York waters, 1904-2010
0
50
100
150
200
25019
04
1910
1916
1922
1928
1934
1940
1946
1952
1958
1964
1970
1976
1982
1988
1994
2000
2006
Land
ings
, Met
ric T
onne
s
NYS
Marine Dist.
Hudson
Data assembled by NYSDEC
Mohawk River blueback
River Herring Total Lengths, mm
200
220
240
260
280
300
320
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Tota
l Len
gth,
mm Alewife
Blueback
Collecting blueback herring in Hudson & Mohawk, 1999-2001
Collecting blueback herring in Mohawk, 2012
Photo: Scott Wells
Early (1999-2000) vs. Curren t (2012) O bserva tions o f Blueback Herr ing , Hudson and Mohawk R ivers
No
of o
bsE
ra: E
arly
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Se x: M
Era
: Cur
rent
1 9 02 0 0
2 1 022 0
23 02 4 0
2 5 026 0
27 02 8 0
2 9 030 0
31 00
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Se x: F
19 020 0
2 1 02 2 0
2 3 024 0
25 02 6 0
2 7 02 8 0
29 030 0
3 1 0
Males Females
1999-2000
2012
N = 73 N = 81
N = 159 N = 70
Sex ratios have skewed too
Current consensus – 1st coast-wide stock assessment completed for ASMFC (2012)
The Striped Bass
Maine to N. Carolina
Source: ASMFC
Female Striped Bass, Age 8+
0102030405060708090
10019
76
1979
1982
1985
1988
1991
1994
1997
2000
2003
2006
2009
2012
Spaw
ning
Sto
ck In
dex ASMFC coast-wide
management restrictions put in place
Source: NYSDEC
A good news story, for a change!
Recent studies by Dave Secor et al. tracking where HR stripers come and go…
www.pbs.org
The American Eel
Regional Indices: Hudson River
Glass eel “product”
“…4800-5300 pieces (glass eels) per kg, depending on time of season ordered”
Region wide, some causes of eel decline:
Lucrative!! $2600/lb (2012)
Nematode infection rate(Anguillicola
crassus)
Photo and data: Wendy Morrison
ASMFC eel technical review board, 2006
Hydropower impacts?
Glooskapandthefrog.org
1850 1900 1950 2000
*not including dams missing dates
Dams Over Time*
Source: Swaney et al. (2006), in Hudson River Fishes and Their Environment
0
5
10
15
20
25
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67
TL cm
Num
ber o
f Eel
s
B
Total Length, cm
Number of eels caught in ladder trap
Sizes of eels caught in ladder trap
Experimental eel ladder – operated by Bob Schmidt & colleagues on Saw Kill since 2006
Citizen Science:The Art of Engaging Folks in GLASS EEEEELS!(monitoring, that is)
Photos: NYSDEC; and two facebook sites
What about the other 205 species logged in for the Hudson River
estuary?
news.nationalgeographic.com
…and the new-ish, “Gang of 20” – the non-native predators…with little to no information about their status!