### FMRI Technical Report TR-5 2000 

# TECHNICAL REPORTS

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Florida’s Shad and River Herrings (Alosa species): A Review of Population and Fishery Characteristics

Richard S. McBride 

# FLORIDA MARINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE 

# TECHNICAL REPORTS ISSN 1092-194X

### Jeb Bush **Governor of Florida**



## Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission

**Allan E. Egbert**
**E xecutive Director** 

**The Florida Marine Research Institute (FMRI) is a division of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Con servation Commission (FWC). The FWC is “managing fish and wildlife resources for their long**  **term well-being and the benefit of people.” The FMRI conducts applied research pertinent to managing marine-fishery resources and marine species of special concern in Florida.** 

**Programs at the FMRI focus on resource-management topics such as managing gamefish and shellfish populations, restoring depleted fish stocks and the habitats that support them, pro**  **tecting coral reefs, preventing and mitigating oil-spill damage, protecting endangered and threatened species, and managing coastal-resource information.** 

**The FMRI publishes three series: Memoirs of the Hourglass Cruises, Florida Marine Research Publi**  **cations, and**  **FMRI Technical Reports. FMRI Technical Reports contain information relevant to imme**  **diate resource-management needs.**

**Kenneth D. Haddad, Chief of Research** 

**James F. Quinn, Jr., Science Editor** 

**Institute Editors Theresa M. Bert, Paul R. Carlson, Mark M. Leiby,**  **Anne B. Meylan, Robert G. Muller, Ruth O. Reese** 

**Judith G. Leiby, Copy Editor** 

**Llyn C. French, Publications Production** 

# Florida’s Shad and River Herrings (Alosa species): A Review of Population and Fishery Characteristics

Richard S. McBride

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Florida Marine Research Institute 100 Eighth Avenue Southeast St. Petersburg, Florida 33701



# Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission FMRI Technical Report TR-5

2000

### Cover Photograph

**A lone angler catches an American shad on the St. Johns River near Sanford, Florida. Photograph by Richard S. McBride.** 



### Copies of this document may be obtained from

**Florida Marine Research Institute 100 Eighth Avenue SE**  **St. Petersburg, FL 33701-5095 Attn: Librarian** 



### Document Citation

**McBride, R. S. 2000. Florida’s shad and river herrings ( Alosa**  **species): A review of population and fishery characteristics. Florida Marine Research Institute Technical Report TR-5. 18 pp.** 



### Document Production

**This document was composed in Microsoft ®**  **Word and produced using QuarkXPress ®**  **on Apple Power Macintosh**  **® computers.The headline font is Adobe**  **® Avant Garde, the text font is Adobe**  **® Palatino, and the cover headline is Adobe**  **® Gill Sans.The cover and text papers are Consolidat**  **ed Fortune Matte Recycled.**

**The cover and text papers used in this publication meet the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48—1992.** 

# Table of Contents

**A CKNOWLEDGMENTS** 

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ii** 

**E XECUTIVE**  **S UMMARY** 

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iii** 

**I NTRODUCTION** 

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1** 

**S PECIES**  **D IVERSITY AND**  **D ISTRIBUTION IN**  **F LORIDA**  **. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1**

**A MERICAN**  **S HAD** 

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1** 

**Research Review**

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1** 
**Commercial Fishery**

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4** 
**Recreational Fishery**

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6** 

**Stock Enhancement**

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7** 

**O THER**  **A LOSIDS** 

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7** 

**Research Review**

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7** 

**Fisheries**

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7** 

**M ARKETS AND**  **R EGULATIONS** **—A LL**  **A LOSIDS**  **. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8**

**A DVERSE**  **F ACTORS** **—A LL**  **A LOSIDS**  **. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9**

**S UMMARY** 

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11** 

**L ITERATURE**  **C ITED** 

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12** 

i

# Acknowledgments

**S. Brown, R. Davis, and J. Holder provided unpublished data. B. Brock assisted with literature searches. R. Crabtree, F. Cross, B. Mahmoudi, R. Matheson, J. Quinn, R. Williams, and D. Winkelman made help**  **ful suggestions for improving the manuscript. J. Leiby copyedited the final manuscript. L. French produced the document for printing. L. Palmer (National Museum of Natural History, Division of Fishes) fur**  **nished digital images for Figure 1. I thank all of the above.**

ii**Five species of shad and river herrings occur in Flori da. American shad**  **(Alosa sapidissima), hickory shad**  **(A. mediocris),**  **and blueback herring (A. aestivalis)**  **occur in northeast Florida. Alabama shad**  **(A. alabamae) and**  **skipjack herring (A. chrysochloris)**  **are present in north west Florida. With the possible exception of skipjack**  **herring, these species are anadromous, spawning in rivers and spending most of their adult lives at sea.The**  **sea migration of Alosa**  **species can extend into inter national waters. For example, locally spawned**  **American shad migrate to Canada before returning to Florida to spawn.**  **All of these Alosa**  **species occur in other states, where their biology may differ from the biology of**  **Florida’s populations.The life cycle of American shad in populations from Florida to Canada is well docu**  **mented and serves as a good example. In populations north of the Carolinas, American shad live longer and**  **grow larger but they produce fewer eggs per unit body weight than southern populations of American shad.**  **South of the Carolinas, water temperatures are too high and migration distances in the ocean are too long** **for American shad to spawn more than once in a life time. Fish in southern populations compensate for**  **this inability to spawn repeatedly by reducing the size and age at spawning and increasing their egg pro**  **duction per unit of body weight. Consequently, adult shad migrating in Florida’s St. Johns River are small**  **er and younger but have higher egg counts than adult shad migrating into other North American rivers. Flori**  **da’s American shad spawn once and then die, whereas American shad from rivers north of the Carolinas can**  **spawn more than once in a lifetime. Netting for shad began in Florida during the mid**  **1800s, and this fishery expanded rapidly once railroads began transporting shad to northern markets a few**  **decades later. Most Florida shad were harvested from the St. Johns River during the December–April spawn**  **ing run. Florida’s populations spawned earlier than populations of the other Atlantic states did, so they** **entered the northern markets earlier and sold at high er prices than shad harvested from other Atlantic states**  **did. At the turn of the nineteenth century, American shad was among the top five fishery species in the**  **U.S. Landings ( i.e.,**  **pounds) and value peaked at this time but have declined steadily during the twentieth**  **century. Hickory shad and blueback herring were also landed and sold during the late 1800s and early 1990s,** **and although they no longer constitute significant fish eries in Florida, they are still economically important**  **to a few east coast states. Fisheries for Alabama shad and skipjack herring never developed.**  **Shad fishing methods have changed considerably since the 1950s in Florida. Haul seines were used until**  **the 1970s, and gill nets were gradually phased out by various regulations during the 1990s. Hook and line** **fishing for shad first became popular in the 1940s; dur ing the 1950s and 1960s, the largest shad sport fishery**  **among the Atlantic states was in Florida’s St. Johns River. Today, the only allowable gear for shad fishing**  **is hook and line. In addition, a saltwater fishing license is now required for most anglers who land shad or river**  **herrings in Florida, and it is illegal to possess more than an aggregate of 10 American shad, Alabama shad, and**  **hickory shad. Because of the virtual elimination of Florida’s commercial fishing effort, it is predicted that**  **there will be increases in shad abundance, length of the spawning run, average fish size, and numbers of female** **shad (up to a 1:1 sex ratio). Commercial ocean-inter cept fisheries that exist offshore of nearly all other** **Atlantic coastal states can still affect Florida’s popula tions, but these fisheries are scheduled to be phased**  **out by the year 2005. Adequate water flow and water quality at shad spawning grounds are now probably**  **the major factors limiting Florida’s shad abundance and**

**recovery.**

FMRI Technical Report TR-5 iii 

# Florida’s Shad and River Herrings (Alosa species): A Review of Population and Fishery Characteristics

Executive SummaryFigure 1. **Florida’s shad and river herrings (digital images courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Division of Fishes).**  

### American Shad

**480 mm TL**



### Hickory Shad

**309 mm TL**



### Blueback Herring

**265 mm TL**



### Alabama Shad

**380 mm TL**



### Skipjack Herring

**320 mm TL drawn by**  **H. L. Todd**

**drawn by**
**N. D. Patton**

**drawn by A. H. Baldwin** 

**drawn by S. Stearns**  **illustrator unknown** 

## Introduction

**Of the six shad and river herring species (Clupeidae:**
**Alosa species) found in North America, five occur in**  **Florida (Figure 1), more than in any other state in the U.S. These species, with one possible exception, are**  **anadromous ( i.e.,**  **they move from salt water to fresh water to spawn). On Florida’s Atlantic coast, there are**  **three species: American shad (Alosa sapidissima),**  **hick ory shad**  **(A. mediocris), and blueback herring**  **(A. aestivalis)**  **. Two species are present on Florida’s gulf coast: Alabama shad**  **(A. alabamae ) and skipjack herring**  **(A. chrysochloris ).The Atlantic species range northward**  **from Florida to as far as Canada, and the gulf species range westward to Louisiana.**  **At the turn of the nineteenth century, American shad was one of the most economically important U.S.**  **fishes, but shad populations have declined dramatically in abundance and value since then. Florida’s shad**  **spawned earlier than those in populations in other east coast states did, so Florida’s shad sold for higher**  **prices than were available later in the year. The early spawning season in Florida also meant that tourists**  **could fish for shad weeks or months earlier than they could in their home states. Recreational shad fishing**  **in Florida grew in popularity during the mid-1900s, and the largest shad sport fishery along the Atlantic coast** **was in Florida’s St. Johns River. More recently, Flori da’s commercial fishery for shad and river herrings has**  **been virtually eliminated by a series of regulations that restrict the use of fishing nets, but an economically**  **valuable recreational fishery persists for American shad in the St. Johns River.** **In this document, I assemble and summarize infor mation about Florida’s populations of**  **Alosa species** **and discuss the status and trends of those popula tions. Much of the information assembled here is from** **the published literature, but I also review and syn thesize unpublished reports and data available from**  **the archives and databases of the Florida Marine Research Institute. After a general account of species**  **distributions, I review the biology, ecology, and fishery of American shad. Comparative information, whenever** **available, is presented for other alosid species in sub sequent subsections. A review of markets, regulations,**  **and factors that adversely affect alosid populations is followed by a brief summary.** 



## Species Diversity and
Distribution in Florida

**Shad and river herrings, collectively referred to as alosids, occur in several river systems on the east and**  **west coasts of Florida (Lee et al.,**  **1980; Rulifson et al.,**  **1982; Warren et al.,**  **2000; Williams and Grey, undated). American shad, hickory shad, and blueback herring are** **present in the St. Johns and St. Marys rivers in north eastern Florida (Figure 2). Some individuals may range** **south to the Tomoka River, just north of Cape Canaver al, but there are no reports of these species south of St.**  **Lucie Inlet. On the gulf coast, Alabama shad ranges through Florida’s panhandle and south to the Suwan**  **nee River, whereas skipjack herring does not occur south or east of the Apalachicola River. The southern**  **distributional limit for all these alosids is limited by temperature (Hildebrand, 1963; Leggett, 1969; Leggett**  **and Whitney, 1972).**



## American Shad

Research Review

**The American shad was described by Wilson (1811), and it was included in classic references on American fish**  **es by Mitchill and DeKay (Hildebrand, 1963). The fishery and husbandry of American shad was well**  **detailed in the literature of the nineteenth century (**  **e.g., Baird, 1874a–g; Milner, 1874; McDonald, 1884a–d,**  **1887; Stevenson, 1898, 1899). Early references that specifically mentioned shad in Florida are Baird (1874g),**  **Goode and Shepard (1874), Osborn (1882, 1883), Hamlen (1884), McDonald (1884a, b, c, d, 1887), Smiley**  **(1884), Cary (1885), Stearns (1885, 1887), Dempsey (1887), Collins (1892), Smith (1893, 1894, 1898), Brice (1898b),**  **Evermann and Bean (1898), Henshall (1898), Stevenson (1898, 1899), and Townsend (1899, 1900). Hildebrand** **(1963; see also Berry, 1964) provided an excellent sum**

FMRI Technical Report TR-5 1 

# Florida’s Shad and River Herrings (Alosa species): A Review of Population and Fishery Characteristics**mary of ecological and systematic research on shad and river herrings; Walburg and Nichols (1967) assessed the**  **economics of the shad fishery and culture; fishery landings, values, and trends were complied by various**  **authors (see Fishery sections); McLean (1955), Moody (1961), Williams and Bruger (1972), and Williams**  **et al. (1975) investigated shad and river herring life histories**  **and the ecology of the St. Johns River (Table 1). American shad are anadromous, and in the St.**  **Johns River they spawn in the freshwater part of the river between Lake Monroe and Lake Poinsett** **(Williams and Bruger, 1972).Their progeny move down stream to the sea and eventually migrate to Canada.**  **After four years, on average, they return to the St. Johns River to spawn. Each river from Florida to Cana**  **da presumably hosts a reproductively isolated population of American shad. Researchers often use**  **specimens from the St. Johns River when examining intraspecific genetic, morphological, or life-history**  **variations, because this Florida population is at the limit of the southern range of the species. Population**  **studies that have examined the Florida population of American shad exclusively or in part include those of**  **Walburg (1956, 1960a, b), Davis (1957), La Pointe (1957), Nichols (1959, 1964, 1965, 1966a, b), Leggett (1969),**  **Leggett and Whitney (1972),Williams and Bruger (1972), Carscadden and Leggett (1975), Leggett and Carscad**  **den (1978), Glebe and Leggett (1981a, b), Dadswell et**  **al. (1987), Conover (1990), Nolan**  **et al. (1991), Melvin**  **et al.**  **(1992), Bentzen et al.**  **(1993), Hogans et al.**  **(1993), Epifanio**  **et al. (1995), and Brown**  **et al. (1996, 1999).** **Because American shad are anadromous, the pop ulation size in any specific river can vary independently**  **from the sizes of populations in other rivers. A recent stock assessment of shad populations (ASMFC, 1998)**  **documented declining abundance in 2 of 12 selected populations from Maine to Georgia (no Florida rivers**  **were included in this assessment because of insufficient data). The American shad is frequently used in stud**  **ies of fish recruitment dynamics ( e.g.,**  **Leggett, 1969;**
**Crecco et al.,**  **1983; Crecco and Savoy, 1984; Savoy and Crecco, 1988; Limburg, 1995). Nonetheless, the causes**  **of population declines remain debatable (see Adverse Factors section).**  Florida’s Shad and River Herrings R. S. McBride

2 FMRI Technical Report TR-5 Figure 2. **Map of Florida’s rivers, indicating water bodies and other landmarks mentioned in the text. American shad research has led to important**  **insights regarding the evolutionary ecology of fishes. The seminal work of Leggett (1969; see also Leggett** **and Carscadden, 1978) established the adaptive sig nificance of geographic variation in shad life history.**  **Leggett noted that American shad arrive at each Atlantic coast river at different dates but at similar water tem**  **peratures ( i.e.,**  **southern populations arrive at rivers to spawn during winter months and northern popula**  **tions arrive at spawning rivers during late spring months). These temperatures are optimal for the sur**  **vival of eggs and larvae, but they occur at the various rivers during different times of the year because of lat**  **itudinal variation in seasonality. He also demonstrated the adverse effects of high temperatures on spawning**  **adults and how fecundity ( i.e.,**  **egg number) and spawn ing frequency vary with latitude; in fact, American shad** **is a repeat spawner (iteroparous) in the north but a one time spawner (semelparous) in the south. He con**  **cluded that because southern populations of American shad die after spawning once, these populations appear**  **to be at a biological disadvantage when compared with the multiple-spawning northern populations of Amer**  **ican shad.This total mortality in the south results from the shad’s physiological limits being exceeded during** **the very long oceanic migrations and from the rapid ly rising temperatures in southern rivers. The biology**  **of southern shad populations, however, has evolved to compensate for this inability to spawn repeatedly.**  **Despite being smaller and younger than individual shad in northern rivers, Florida’s shad produce more**  **eggs per unit of body weight. Consequently, the lifetime reproductive potential of individuals in both the north**  **ern and southern populations of American shad is roughly equal.This adaptive variation in size, age, egg** **number, spawning frequency, and migration energet** R. S. McBride Florida’s Shad and River Herrings

FMRI Technical Report TR-5 3 Table 1. **Life history data for Alosa**  **species in Florida. Data for American shad come from Walburg (1960a), Williams and Bruger (1972), and Williams**  **et al . (1975); data for hickory shad and blueback herring are from** 

**Williams et al** **. (1975); data for Alabama shad are from Laurence (1967) and Laurence and Yerger (1967); data for skipjack herring are from Wolfe (1969).** 

St. Johns River Apalachicola River

American Hickory Blueback Alabama Skipjack shad shad herring shad herring

Adults **Fecundity (1,000s) 277–659 168–591 151–349 46–149 76–962 a**  **Fish size b**  **(mm) 353–460 323–414 213–278 368–427 352–451 Riverine diet Not feeding Fish Invertebrates Not feeding Fish**  Spawning **Months Dec–Apr Nov?–Feb Dec–Apr Feb–Apr Dec–Apr (Peak) (Feb–Mar) (?) (Feb–Mar) (Apr) (Mar–Apr)**  **Areas (km) c**  **240–330 <300? 200–380 Below Woodruff Extensive**
**Dam Length range**  **b 317–480 303–416 204–262 330–431 240–482**  **Modal age IV III V–VI III III (Age range) (III–VI)**  **d (II–IV) (III–VIII) (II–IV)**  **e (II–IV)**  **e Frequency 1 1? 5? 2? 1?**  Juveniles **Growth rate 0.23–0.32 mm d –1** 

**— f** 

**— f** 

**— f** 

**— f** 
**Diet Invertebrates — — Fish/ Fish/ Invertebrates Invertebrates** 

**a Length–fecundity relationship was not statistically significant.** 

**b Studies in the St. Johns River measured fork length (FL), and studies in the Apalachicola River measured total length (TL).** 

**c There is a 14% difference in river miles/kilometers reported in Williams and Bruger (1972) and Williams**  **et al . (1975).** 

**d Less than 1% of the fish in the spawning run were either ages II or ages VI**  **+**

**.**
**e 1%–2% of the fish in the spawning run were age I.** 

**f Data in original report/thesis could probably be used to calculate growth rates.** **ics across latitudes is strong evidence of life history evolution in a marine fish. Such fine tuning between**  **reproductive strategies and the environment may be the ultimate cause for the evolution of homing behavior**  **(Leggett and Carscadden, 1978).**



### Commercial Fishery

**Today, American shad landings are of minor impor tance when compared to the U.S. landings of all other**  **fishes ( e.g.,**  **U.S. Department of Commerce, 1993). His torically, however, the American shad fishery was one**  **of the most important fisheries along the Atlantic seaboard (Smith, 1894; Walburg and Nichols, 1967),**  **and shad were a very popular foodfish (Nichols, 1918). Native Americans fished for anadromous fishes, and**  **fishing rights along alosid spawning runs were leased during the Colonial period (Loesch and Atran, 1994).**  **At the turn of the nineteenth century, millions of pounds of shad—worth millions of dollars then—were**  **landed (Figure 3; Leim, 1924; Lyles, 1967a–c; Walburg, 1960a, b; ASMFC, 1985). In 1896, approximately 25,000**  **fishers were engaged in shad fishing (Stevenson, 1898, 1899). In 1908, American shad ranked second by vol**  **ume and third by value for all fisheries nationwide (Walburg and Nichols, 1967).** **A gill-net fishery for American shad began in Flori da’s St. Johns River in the 1850s (Walburg, 1960a), but**  **this was the last shad fishery to develop along the U.S. east coast (Goode and Shepard, 1874; McDonald, 1887;**  **Stevenson, 1899; Walburg and Nichols, 1967). It was also relatively small compared to shad fisheries in other**  **states (Figure 4; Collins, 1892; Smith, 1893, 1894, 1898; Stevenson, 1899; Leim, 1924). Still, in 1889 and 1890,**  **Florida’s shad landings (> 2 million lbs) and their value ($100,000) were higher than those of any other marine**  **product harvested within the state (Smith, 1893). Brice (1898a) discussed the rapid expansion of Florida’s fish**  **eries as the railroad expanded along the east coast and reached Titusville, Florida, in 1885. Railroads pro**  **vided the infrastructure for transporting American shad to northern markets and made Florida’s fishery**  **much more valuable. Florida’s shad landings peaked at the turn of the century at about 1–3 million lbs and**  **fluctuated between 200,000 and 900,000 lbs from the 1920s to the 1960s. Landings have declined further,**  **from <200,000 lbs in the early 1970s to nearly zero by the late 1990s (Tables 2, 3; Walburg, 1960a, b; Lyles,**  **1967a; Walburg and Nichols, 1967; ASMFC, 1985). Both Walburg (1960a, b) and Nichols (1964, 1965,**  **1966a) estimated the population biomass of Florida’s American shad to range from 1 to 3 million pounds dur**  **ing the 1950s and 1960s, which is roughly equal to the peak yields of the fishery at the turn of the nineteenth** **century. During the 1950s, about 2%–8% of the Amer ican shad stock in the St. Johns River was harvested**  **annually with commercial gill nets, another 7%–20% taken with commercial haul seines, and 3%–8% taken**  **with hook and line by sport anglers (Walburg, 1960a, b; see also Walburg and Nichols [1967] and ASMFC**  **[1985]); total fishing mortality then was about 15%–37%. Based on these values, either the virgin (or predevel**  **opment) stocks were much larger than those during the 1950s were, or the mortality rates were astonishingly**  **high at the turn of the nineteenth century, or both of these conditions existed.**  **Fishers at the turn of the nineteenth century in Florida caught shad primarily in drifting gill nets, sec**  Florida’s Shad and River Herrings R. S. McBride

4 FMRI Technical Report TR-5 Figure 3. **Weight (circle) and value (triangle) of American shad landings, 1880–1960, for the United States Atlantic coast.**  **Values are unadjusted for inflation (from Walburg and Nichols, 1967,Table 55)** 

. Figure 4. **Annual landings, 1926–1985, of American shad in Florida (open portion of bar) and all other Atlantic states (filled**  **portion of bar). Complete data do not exist for all years before 1950. Data source: ASMFC (1985: Table II-2).** **ondarily in haul seines, and thirdly in anchored or staked gill nets (Smith, 1898; Stevenson, 1899). These**  **gears were common in nearly all other states, although pound nets, weirs, fyke nets, and bow nets were also**  **used outside of Florida. In many areas of the St. Johns River gill nets were not used because the waters were**  **too sluggish or the aquatic vegetation was too dense (Walburg and Nichols, 1967). Haul-seining was dis**  **continued during the early 1970s in Florida’s St. Johns River, but gill netting effort remained relatively con**  **stant from the 1950s to the 1970s (Williams and Bruger, 1972). Therefore, the decline in gill-net landings dur**  **ing the 1970s (Table 2) probably represents a real decline in population size.The declining trend in Flori**  **da’s landings during the 1990s (Table 3), however, should be credited to the increase in fishing gear**  **restrictions (see Markets and Regulations). As has happened in many other states, Florida’s**  **shad fishing grounds shifted geographically in the last few decades, so that by the 1990s most of the shad**  **harvested came from gill nets fished in coastal waters. Because American shad migrate between their natal**  **river and Canada they are vulnerable to fishing in coastal waters beyond the state of origin. Ocean-inter**  **cept fishing offshore of other Atlantic states probably adds to the fishing pressure on Florida’s populations.**  **Ocean-intercept landings have more than doubled in the past two decades (ASMFC, 1999), which could indi**  **cate that this source of fishing mortality has increased recently. Unfortunately, the impacts of this developing**  R. S. McBride Florida’s Shad and River Herrings

FMRI Technical Report TR-5 5 Table 2. **Pounds of American shad landed in Florida, by gear type. Data from Walburg and Nichols (1967) and ASMFC (1985).** 

Gill Net

Year Drift Anchor Seine Rod & Reel

**1896 940,000 5,000 353,000 no data reported 1960 50,000 163,000 299,000 198,000**  **1965 239,000 202,000 316,000 no data reported 1970 27,000 65,000 127,000 no data reported**  **1976 5,000 23,000 0 no data reported**

Table 3. **Annual commercial landings of Alosa**  **in Florida. Landings are presumably all American shad, but reporting criteria did not require distinguishing between American and hickory shad. Data are restricted to reports from Nassau,** 

**Duval, and St. Johns counties (all coastal) and Putnam County (inland). A fishing year (July–June) is used because**

**the spawning run begins as early as November and continues for several months. Data source: Florida Marine**

**Fisheries Information System (Steve Brown, Florida Marine Research Institute, personal communication). Data for 1997–98 are preliminary** 

**.**

Coastal County Landings All Florida Landings
Year Pounds Trips Value ($) Pounds Trips Value ($)

**1986–87 142,026 248 12,454 155,430 313 13,620 1987–88 266,251 220 22,900 266,374 224 22,911**  **1988–89 164,839 254 16,484 165,112 263 16,511 1989–90 169,881 278 18,501 289,293 544 31,419**  **1990–91 58,810 278 8,527 71,592 322 10,084 1991–92 49,633 267 6,170 49,798 270 6,191**  **1992–93 24,503 133 5,574 24,503 133 5,574 1993–94 24,930 174 7,346 24,968 175 7,357**  **1994–95 26,791 150 5,853 26,886 152 5,881 1995–96 3,650 2 818 3,650 2 818** 
**1996–97 54 2 12 54 2 12**
**1997–98 18 2 4 18 2 4 fishery for various shad populations cannot be assessed**  **because attempts to delineate the stock composition in these mixed-stock ocean fisheries have been incon**  **clusive (Epifanio et al.,**  **1995; ASMFC, 1998; ASMFC, 1999; Brown**  **et al., 1999). Because of concerns that fish**  **ing mixed stocks of shad in the ocean could be adversely affecting small populations, whereas larger**  **(and generally better monitored) populations could appear unaffected (ASMFC, 1985, 1998), ocean-inter**  **cept fishing will be phased out by 2005 (ASMFC, 1999). Although the exact effect of this fishery on Florida’s**  **shad population size is not known, a phase-out of ocean fishing by other states will improve Florida’s** **ability to control fishing pressure on local anadro mous populations.** 



### Recreational Fishery

**Seining for shad was considered sport at the turn of the nineteenth century, and anglers were fishing for shad**  **in the St. Johns River as early as the 1880s (Pfeiffer, 1975). Nonetheless, Florida’s shad sport fishery is generally**  **recognized as originating in 1942 (Snyder, 1949; Nichols, 1959; Walburg, 1960a, b).The introduction of spinning** **tackle in the 1940s helped popularize shad sport fish ing, principally because it was an effective way to fish**  **with the light lures used to catch shad. Fly-fishing for shad has also become popular in recent years (Lind**  **say, 1999). Anglers fish for shad from public boat ramps and at a small number of fish camps on the St. Johns** **River between Lake Monroe and Lake Poinsett (Brany on, 1999).Traditional shad fishing spots in this area are**  **found at Marina Isle, Mullet Lake Park, Lemon Bluff, Puzzle Lake, and Hatbill Park.The certified state record**  **fish (a tie) for American shad (5.19 lbs.) were caught in Seminole and Volusia counties.**  **During the 1950s and 1960s, the shad sport fishery in the St. Johns River was estimated to be larger than**  **the shad sport fisheries in any of the other Atlantic states (Nichols, 1959, 1966a; Walburg and Nichols,**  **1967). Other estimates of recreational landings have been reported by Nichols (1964, 1965),Walburg (1960a,** **b), Williams and Bruger (1972), Williams (1996), Hold er and Cross (1996), Holder (1998), Davis (1999), and**  **Cheek (undated). Estimates from the above reports are not easily compared to each other, however, except**  **as noted below. During the 1990s, catch per unit effort (CPUE) for shad caught by recreational fishers in the**  **St. Johns River ranged between 0.5 and 1.2 American shad per fishing hour (Table 4). Release rates of boat**  **ed fish varied from 20 to 89% in any given year. In years of exceptional rainfall (** **i.e., 1993–94 and 1997–98)**  **the CPUEs were lower, most likely because when river water levels are extremely high, the fish scatter. One**  **overall trend in the data is that the average CPUE for 1995–96 and 1998–99 was higher than that for 1992–93**  **and 1994–95 (1.2 versus 0.71 fish per angler hour).This increase in CPUE may be due to the implementation**  **of Florida’s 1995 constitutional amendment banning certain nets in state waters (see Markets and Regula**  **tions), which would be expected to improve the chances that adult fish reach the spawning grounds.Tentative**  **plans are to continue to gather CPUE data during 1999–2004 and to add an electrofishing survey so that**  **we can independently evaluate whether the recent increase in shad recreational CPUE is significant and**  **sustained (McBride, 1999).** Florida’s Shad and River Herrings R. S. McBride

6 FMRI Technical Report TR-5 Table 4. **Catch and effort in the St. Johns River recreational shad fishery for six fishing seasons. Catch per unit effort (CPUE) is a stratified mean number of fish per angler hour. The same stratified, roving sampling design was used in**  **all years of this survey. Sampling times were chosen randomly within predetermined periods (weekdays/weekends, morning/mid-day/afternoon). The survey was conducted in an area where shad fishing is concentrated,**  **a 9.6-km stretch of river from the Lake Jessup boat ramp to Iron Bend.**

Year Catch (n) Effort (Angler-hours) CPUE

**1992–93 9,432 12,623 0.77 1993–94 4,907 9,143 0.55** * **1994–95 5,270 8,357 0.65 1995–96 8,423 7,190 1.18**  **1996–97 No data No data No data 1997–98 2,367 5,610 0.46** * **1998–99 5,434 4,764 1.19**

***The winters of 1993–94 and 1997–98 were exceptionally rainy, with very high water levels in rivers, and may be anomalous. Data for 1998–99 are preliminary. Data sources: Holder and Cross (1996), Holder (1998), and Davis (1999).** 

### Stock Enhancement

**Artificial fertilization of American shad eggs succeeded as early as 1848, and the federal government stocked**  **U.S. streams with nearly 100 million shad fry during the 1870s alone (Baird, 1874a–e; Milner, 1874; Walburg**  **and Nichols, 1967).There were several letters advocating the stocking of American shad in Florida’s St. Johns and**  **St. Marys rivers (Goode and Shepard, 1874; Osborn, 1882, 1883; Hamlen, 1884; Smiley, 1884; Cary, 1885;** **Dempsey, 1887; McDonald, 1887; Smith, 1893; Ever mann and Bean, 1898; Henshall, 1898; Stevenson, 1899;**  **Townsend, 1900), but there is no clear evidence that this was done (nor any evidence that it was necessary).**  **American shad were stocked in Florida’s Indian River (Evermann and Bean, 1898), but this system is proba**  **bly too warm for shad, and stocking was not successful. Stearns (1885) and letters in Baird (1874g) advocated**  **stocking gulf coast rivers, and stocking occurred in the Suwannee (Brice, 1898b), the Alabama (Baird, 1874f;**  **McDonald, 1884c), and in the Mississippi (Baird, 1874c; Pfieffer, 1975) rivers. Efforts to stock fish in Gulf of**  **Mexico rivers were considered to be unsuccessful by Hildebrand (1963) and Walburg and Nichols (1967).** **Elsewhere, unsuccessful stocking occurred in Col orado streams, the Great Lakes, and the Great Salt**  **Lake, but a successful introduction of shad occurred in the Pacific along the U.S. west coast (Welander, 1941;**  **Walburg and Nichols, 1967).The federal shad hatchery program declined in production after the turn of the**  **nineteenth century and ended in 1950, although many states (but not Florida) have their own programs.** 



## Other Alosids

Research Review

**Hickory shad and blueback herring were first described by Mitchill (1814) and re-classified by Svetovidov (1964).**  **Blueback herring and alewife, A. pseudoharengus,**  **are collectively referred to as ’river herrings’ because they** **occur together abundantly in northern rivers and are dif ficult to distinguish from each other.This is not a problem** **in Florida, because alewife does not occur here (Hilde brand, 1963).The prior research emphasis on American**  **shad and the passage of the Anadromous Fish Act of 1965 (Public Law 89-304) led Williams**  **et al. (1975) to** **focus their attention on hickory shad and blueback her ring during their investigation of the ecology of American** **shad in the St. Johns River (Table 1). Detailed informa tion on hickory shad and blueback herring in Florida**  **appears to be limited to Williams et al.**  **’s (1975) unpub lished report and to McLean (1955) and Moody (1961).**  **The presence of ‘white shad’ along the gulf coast was first noted by Baird (1874f, g). Twenty years later,**  **Evermann (1896) described the Alabama shad from specimens of white shad from an Alabama river and**  **from Pensacola, Florida. Evermann stated: “In view of the importance of this discovery, it is**  **thought desirable to publish this preliminary description in advance of a more complete report upon the species.”**  **The more “complete” report of this species was not done, however, for another 70 years. Laurence**  **(1967) and Laurence and Yerger (1967) examined the ecology of Alabama shad in the Apalachicola River**  **(Table 1), and Mills (1972) continued this research using funds made available under the Anadromous**  **Fish Act (P.L. 89-304). Evermann (1898), Bailey et al.**  **(1954), Hildebrand (1963), and Boschung (1992) also made noteworthy contributions to the knowledge of** **this species in several Florida rivers, and the consen sus is that the largest population occurs in the** **Apalachicola River. Huntsman (1994) regards Alaba ma shad as being notably reduced in abundance and**  **vulnerable to extinction. Rafinesque’s 1820 description of skipjack herring**  **was so confounding that this species’taxonomic status was in doubt until the review of alosids by Hildebrand**  **(1963) confirmed its validity.This species is distributed extensively in freshwater river systems of the mid**  **western U.S. (Lee et al.,**  **1980), and the type specimen ( i.e.,**  **the fish used to describe the species) was from the Ohio River. Distributional records reported by Hilde**  **brand (1963),Wolfe (1969), Lee et al.**  **(1980), and Boschung (1992) included several records in the Gulf of Mexico**  **and in Florida estuaries. Still, the lone population study of this species (Wolfe, 1969; Table 1) presented only**  **equivocal evidence that it is anadromous.**



### Fisheries

**There has been no directed commercial fishery for hickory shad, but landings of this species have been**  **included as unidentified bycatch in American shad landings.The amount of such bycatch is unknown and**  **is difficult to estimate because it varies depending on both river location and season. For example, Williams**  **et al. (1975) reported catching roughly 1 hickory shad**  **for every 7 American shad during the 1971–72 sampling season (combined n = 880) but only about 1 hickory**  **shad for every 99 American shad during the 1972–73 season (combined n = 1216). These very different**  **between-year results may be partially explained by the fact that hickory shad enter rivers earlier than**  **American shad (Moody, 1961), and Williams et al.**  **start ed sampling three calendar weeks earlier in their first**  **year than they did in their second year, when they found fewer hickory shad (Figure 5). Hickory shad also**  R. S. McBride Florida’s Shad and River Herrings

FMRI Technical Report TR-5 7**do not migrate as far upstream as American shad do, and they appear to be more abundant (by frequency**  **of occurrence and by weight) in deeper water than American shad are (Moody, 1961).**  **Historic reports of ‘alewife’landings in Florida are a combination of blueback herring and hickory shad** **on Florida’s east coast (McDonald, 1887) and men haden (** **Brevoortia spp.) on Florida’s west coast. These**  **landings peaked at just over 1 million pounds in the first quarter of the twentieth century (Lyles, 1967a).** **Landings reported by the Atlantic States Marine Fish eries Commission (ASMFC, 1985) depict Florida’s**  **landings of river herrings as high and steady in the 1930s and 1940s, variable and lower in the 1950s, and**  **declining to zero by the 1960s (remaining so during the 1970s and 1980s).**  **Hildebrand (1963) reported nominal landings of Alabama shad, but a commercial fishery for either this**  **species or skipjack herring has never developed (Baird, 1874f, g; Evermann and Kendall, 1898; Mills, 1972).** **‘Shad’are often reported as landed in west coast coun ties, according to the State of Florida’s Marine Fisheries**  **Information System, but these fish, locally called shad, are actually menhaden (** **Brevoortia spp.).**  **Recreational fishing for Alosa**  **species other than American shad is minor. There is no directed sport**  **fishery for hickory shad, although some anglers may land them preferentially because they consider their**  **roe to be better to eat than American shad’s (Nichols, 1959). Still, hickory shad are relatively rare; a 1958**  **angler creel survey (Walburg, 1960a) reported that 1,553 (2.4%) hickory shad were present among the** **65,246 shad caught in the St. Johns River. Our percep tion of hickory shad as a rare species is influenced at**  **least partly by angler behavior, particularly to fish in late winter and in upstream portions of the St. Johns**  **River. These conditions exaggerate the abundance of American shad compared to hickory shad, because**  **hickory shad has an earlier spawning run and does not migrate as far up the river. Many anglers simply can**  **not distinguish between American and hickory shad (Walburg, 1960a), so detailed records of species com**  **position of the catch are not available. Sport fishing for Alabama shad began around 1950 but has not devel**  **oped significantly (Smith, 1968; Mills, 1972), and there is no sport fishery for blueback herring. Sport fishing**  **for skipjack herring occurs during spring, and Yerger (1977) reported that this species is popular among fly**  **rod enthusiasts.**



## Markets and Regulations— All Alosids

**Fillet quality varies from “delicious”for American shad, Alabama shad, and blueback herring, to “inferior in fla**  **vor”for hickory shad, to “not especially well flavored” for skipjack herring (Hildebrand, 1963). The roe of**  **American shad, hickory shad, and Alabama shad is also eaten (Nichols, 1959; Smith, 1968).Walburg and Nichols**  **(1967) concluded that American shad had declined in popularity relative to other fishes and recommended**  **that improved methods of handling, particularly deboning, could increase the demand for shad.**  **Florida has a particular marketing advantage over other states because of the early spawning season for** **American shad there. Historically, this allowed Flori da to be a main supplier during February and March,**  **when prices were high (Figure 6; Henshall, 1898; Stevenson, 1899).Walburg and Nichols (1967) noted that** **American shad caught in the St. Johns River were usu ally shipped to New York City and other distant**  **markets, whereas those caught in the St. Marys River were mainly sold at local or regional markets. Although,**  **landings of hickory shad are not recorded separately from those of American shad, they probably do not con**  **tribute substantially to shad landings in Florida. In Florida, as in most other Atlantic states, landings of**  **blueback herring are generally far less than those of shad. Blueback herring were a historically valuable**  Florida’s Shad and River Herrings R. S. McBride

8 FMRI Technical Report TR-5 Figure 5. **Catch per unit effort of American shad (filled symbols) and hickory shad (open symbols) in a tidal portion of the St. Johns** **River, between Palatka and Welaka.Two sampling periods were cov ered: December 1971–April 1972 (circles) and December 1972 and**  **March 1973 (triangles). Data are from Williams et al.**  **(1975). commercial fishery in Florida, when these fish were a**  **salted and shipped to distant markets, but blueback herring declined in importance after the development**  **of refrigeration (McDonald, 1884a; Hildebrand, 1963). In the 1970s, both blueback herring and hickory shad** **were used primarily as bait for the crab and catfish fish eries (McLean, 1955; Williams**  **et al., 1975). Markets for**  **Alabama shad and skipjack herring never developed. Commercial fishing regulations for Florida’s Amer**  **ican shad populations have existed since at least 1896, when (1) fishing was allowed only from sunrise on**  **Monday to sundown on Saturday and from December 1 to March 31, (2) mesh sizes were restricted to > 5 inch**  **es for gill nets and to >3 inches for seines, and (3) using seines in the lake portions of the rivers was pro**  **hibited (Stevenson, 1899; Walburg and Nichols, 1967). Moreover, an act approved in 1893 prohibited net**  **fishers (except those using cast nets) from taking commercial food-fish within one mile of any pass,**  **inlet, or river mouth connecting with the Atlantic Ocean (Brice, 1898a).**  **Regulations for the St. Johns River in 1960 included (1) a restricted commercial season from November 15 to**  **March 15 and (2) an area closed to commercial nets south of Lake George.The legal fishing season for the St.** **Marys River (which runs along the Florida-Georgia bor der) in 1960 was from December 15 to April 15, but there**  **were no other restrictions for Florida’s part of this river (Walburg, 1960a; Walburg and Nichols, 1967).**  **A series of regulations in the 1990s caused sharp reductions in Florida’s commercial landings of shad.**  **Landings for upstream gill-net fishing were severely reduced after January 1, 1992, by a regulation to increase**  **mesh size (**≥ **6 inches stretched mesh) to assist in the man agement of striped bass**  **(Morone saxatilis) populations**  **(Williams, 1996).The ocean shad fishery was restricted by net-tending and net soak-time regulations that grad**  **ually took effect from March 1992 to May 1994 (Williams, 1996). Furthermore, fishing with nets in coastal waters is**  **now severely restricted by a ‘net ban’ amendment to Florida’s Constitution (Art. X, Sec. 16) that took effect in** **July 1995. This amendment prohibits the use of entan gling nets >500 ft**  **2 , which were commonly used for shad** **fishing, within three miles of the Atlantic coast. Conse quently, although sale of alosids is not prohibited, the**  **commercial net fishery for shad and blueback herring has been effectively eliminated within state waters.**  **Sport fishing for American shad has been regulated by bag limits since 1955, and the initial bag limit of 15**  **fish per day was lowered to 10 fish in 1973 (Williams, 1996). Since January 1, 1990, a saltwater fishing license**  **has been required of most anglers who fish for marine species, and this also applies to anglers who fish for**  **anadromous species such as shad and river herrings. Since January 1, 1997 (Chapter 68B-52.001 of the Flori**  **da Administrative Code), hook and line has been the only allowable fishing gear for alosids and it has been**  **unlawful to possess more than 10 fish (as an aggregate of American shad, Alabama shad, and hickory shad).**  **Management of all U.S. east-coast shad and river herring populations is overseen by the Atlantic States**  **Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) through a Fishery Management Plan (FMP) subscribed to by the**  **individual Atlantic-coast states. Maximum exploitation rates for Florida’s Atlantic populations of alosids was**  **set at 25% in 1985 by the ASMFC (ASMFC, 1985). Amendment 1 to the ASMFC’s ‘Shad and River Her**  **ring FMP’ calls for (1) a 5-year phase out of the ocean-intercept fishery, (2) regulating the in-river fish**  **ery at target exploitation rates ( e.g.,**  **F 30**  **), and (3) implementing bag limits of 10 fish per day in the recre**  **ational fishery (ASMFC, 1999). American shad abundance had been closely monitored in some states**  **but not in others, such as Florida (ASMFC, 1998), so Amendment 1 also establishes monitoring programs** **for all states; it requires Florida to monitor commer cial and recreational shad fisheries and to complete**  **fishery-independent surveys of American shad (McBride, 1999).** 



## Adverse Factors—All Alosids

**Declines in shad and river herring populations were evident in many Atlantic rivers as early as the nine**  R. S. McBride Florida’s Shad and River Herrings

FMRI Technical Report TR-5 9 Figure 6. **(A) Prices of shad in New York City, by week and sex, during 1896 (from Stevenson, 1899), (B) Daily number of shad per**  **net fished from 1 December 1885 to 31 March 1886 at New Berlin, Florida (from Dempsey, 1887).** **teenth century (Baird, 1874e; Walburg and Nichols, 1967; Loesch and Atran, 1994). Many different factors**  **have been cited as causing population declines of alosids during the past two centuries. Rulifson**  **et al. (1982) listed a number of anthropogenic factors that**  **could adversely affect anadromous fish populations in Florida rivers, none of which are unique to Florida, and**  **Williams and Bruger (1972) discussed several of these factors—fishing pressure increases, river-flow alter**  **ations, water quality declines, and human population growth in the St. Johns watershed—in more detail.**  **Not all variations in shad production are the result of anthropogenic causes, however. Leggett (1969) related**  **year-class strength and post-spawning mortality to variations in temperature in a Connecticut river, and**  **Summers and Rose (1987) found that spawning stock size, river flow rate, and temperature were important**  **predictors of future American shad population sizes. The major factors affecting or that have the potential**  **of affecting Florida’s populations of shad and river herring are discussed below.**  **Dam building, which precluded fish movement between freshwater spawning grounds and marine** **feeding grounds, was one of the earliest known caus es of alosid population declines. This was a particular**  **problem in the northeastern states, where industrial power was developed with water resources as early as**  **Colonial times, and there are numerous cases in which entire runs of shad were eliminated by damming (Stil**  **well et al.,**  **1874; Stevenson, 1898; Loesch and Atran, 1994). Fishways built prior to 1930 were largely unsuc**  **cessful in allowing fish to pass around dams, but fishway designs have improved since for both allowing adult fish**  **to move upstream (Walburg and Nichols, 1967; Quinn, 1994) and for reducing the mortality rates of young-of**  **the-year fish moving downstream (Martin et al.,**  **1994). In Florida, there are a few structures that adversely** **affect shad populations. A dam built on the Ocklawa ha River, a branch of the St. Johns River, has been under**  **consideration for removal for several years (Joseph, 1998; Klinkenberg and Hauserman, 1998). Removing this**  **dam would be a first step towards restoring a shad run to this area, but it will have little effect unless shad**  **spawning habitat is restored. The Lake Washington Weir cuts off areas of the upper St. Johns River that were** **historic spawning grounds for shad, but it is not con sidered a significant impediment to shad spawning**  **success because it occurs upstream of what is now the major spawning area for shad.To protect farming com**  **munities from floods, alterations along the St. Johns River were made beginning at the turn of the nineteenth**  **century and continued to be made during the 1940s and 1950s.These flood-control activities had severe effects**  **on sedimentation dynamics, water quality, and habitat availability (Bass and Cox, 1985; Walther, 1989; Cox,**  **1997).Two proposed water-control structures, at Lakes Harney and Poinsett along the St. Johns River, were pro**  **posed as recently as the 1970s, but they were not built because of environmental concerns (Williams and**  **Bruger, 1972). The spawning migration of Alabama shad is limited in the Apalachicola River by the**  **Woodruff Dam and in the Chipola River by the Dead Lakes Dam. Suitable spawning habitat occurs below**  **these dams, and there is no historical evidence that the fish migrated farther upstream (although they prob**  **ably did; Laurence, 1967). Obstructions within Florida rivers probably reduce total shad production to some**  **degree, and improved designs to existing structures may improve shad population size.** **Pollution is also cited frequently as being detri mental to shad production. As was true for damming,**  **the effects from declining water quality were evident even before the turn of the nineteenth century, again**  **mainly in the industrialized northern states (Walburg and Nichols, 1967). In the Delaware River during sum**  **mer, for example, extremely low levels of dissolved oxygen caused by municipal and industrial pollutions**  **may kill both adult and juvenile shad during migrations in some years (Sykes and Lehman, 1957). Ironically,**  **sewage loads have existed for so long ( i.e.,**  **since prior to 1929) in the Delaware River, as well as in the Hud**  **son River, that they were not identified as significantly affecting shad populations in time-series analyses of**  **shad populations and habitat quality during the years 1929–1976 (Summers and Rose 1987). Significant fac**  **tors for predicting shad population sizes in the Summers and Rose study were spawning stock size,**  **water flow, and water temperature, the last two of which are related indirectly to water quality. More**  **recently,Weisberg et al.**  **(1996) documented the increas ing distribution and abundance of American shad in**  **the Delaware River concurrent with improvements in water quality during the period 1980–1993.** **In Florida’s St. Johns River, approximately 35 mil lion gallons of treated sewage enter the river daily**  **between Lake Harney and Lake Monroe (Bass and Cox, 1985), an area that overlaps American shad spawn**  **ing grounds. Here, the combination of severely altered river flow and the increased nutrient loadings from**  **sewage has degraded water quality and sometimes caused fish kills. However, since the 1970s, this situa**  **tion has been mitigated somewhat by restoration of the floodplain marsh habitats and by installation of more**  **advanced sewage treatment systems (Bass and Cox, 1985; Miller, 1997). Dredging can also affect water qual**  **ity, and there is increasing concern about the effects of dredging on fish and wildlife communities in the**  **Apalachicola River (Bass and Cox, 1985; Hauserman,** Florida’s Shad and River Herrings R. S. McBride

10 FMRI Technical Report TR-5**1999). Williams et al.**  **(1975: 109) identified the follow ing in their discussion of water quality in the St. Johns**  **River and alosid populations: “The large elevation gradient between Lake Har**  **ney and Lake Poinsett is an important geological characteristic that ensures a current in the upper river** **and ensures that American shad have a suitable spawn ing area, even during low water conditions. The**  **importance of this area as a spawning ground for American shad should be given high consideration**  **by agencies, organizations, or individuals that seek to build flood control or water conservation structures that**  **would in any way impair or prevent shad migration into this area, or that would lower the quality of water in** **this area, or that would alter its physical characteris tics such as adequate current and clean sand bottom.”**  **Power plants that require cooling water may adversely affect alosids.**  **Alosa larvae or juveniles may** **become trapped on the intake screens and die (Fletch er, 1985; Horwitz, 1987) or they may be killed by the**  **elevated temperatures associated with power plant cooling systems (Schubel**  **et al., 1977). At present, power**  **plant cooling systems do not appear to be located in areas that affect Florida alosids (**  **e.g., Grimes, 1975).**  **The adverse effects of fishing pressure on shad populations have been demonstrated by increases in**  **population sizes that occurred after fishing effort was reduced in some northern rivers (Walburg and Nichols,**  **1967). Relatively high levels of fishing mortality of American shad occurred in the St. Johns River during**  **the 1950s (Walburg, 1960a, b), but Nichols (1959: 39) concluded that “sport and commercial fisheries [in the**  **St. Johns River] are not of a great enough magnitude, at least at the present time, to adversely affect the [shad]**  **population.” Later, Nichols (1964: 13) even postulated that the 1962 shad “production increase of 30 percent**  **over the previous season, probably resulted from the large spawning escapement of more than 2 million**  **pounds in 1957–58.”Nonetheless, in a summary of these studies by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Walburg**  **(1960a: p. 499) concluded that “factors that affect size of the run are unknown.”The size of the St. Johns River**  **population appeared to decline shortly after the early 1960s, and Williams and Bruger (1972) raised concerns** **about the effects fishing pressure was having on Amer ican shad in the St. Johns River. They noted that**  **American shad sex ratios deviated from 1:1, which they associated with high levels of gillnetting effort and** **concurrent declines in haul-seining effort. They rea soned that because female shad are larger than male**  **shad, and because shad egg production is related to body size, then this shift in fishing gears dispropor**  **tionally reduces the numbers of the largest females reaching the spawning grounds and subsequently it**  **could substantially reduce shad egg production. Analyses of fishing effects on shad have repeatedly**  **focused on the overlap of shad fishing grounds versus shad spawning grounds. Early on, Stevenson (1898,**  **1899) noted geographic shifts in shad fishing effort so that by 1896 approximately 45% of U.S. shad landings**  **were harvested from estuarine waters, whereas 50 years earlier all fishing was near river headwaters.**  **Stevenson concluded that because nearly half the fish caught were landed before they reached the spawning**  **grounds, this change in fishing areas had an adverse effect on the population sizes of American shad. Over**  **the past two decades, the expansion of shad fishing in coastal waters has renewed concern about the adverse**  **effects of fishing away from the spawning grounds (ASMFC, 1999), and now it is not just because the fish**  **are harvested before they reach the spawning grounds. Coastal fishing is referred to as ocean-intercept,** **because such fishing (north of Florida) harvests a mix ture of alosid stocks. The actual composition of this** **mixed-stock, ocean-intercept fishery varies with loca tion and season, but it is largely undocumented and it**  **appears to be impractical to monitor routinely (see Melvin**  **et al., 1992; Epifanio**  **et al., 1995; Thorrold**  **et al., 1998; Brown**  **et al., 1999). Complicating this matter,**  **intensive fishing of river herring stocks by foreign fleets occurred in the Fisheries Conservation Zone**  **(3–200 miles offshore) during the 1970s (Richkus, 1988), and alosids may still be significant but undocument**  **ed bycatch in ocean fisheries such as that for Atlantic herring (Field**  **et al., 1996). Until these fisheries outside** **Florida’s waters are managed, Florida has only a lim ited ability to control the total fishing mortality**  **experienced by its populations.**



## Summary

**American shad were historically valuable to Florida and other Atlantic states, but population sizes have declined**  **dramatically during the twentieth century. Information about other alosids in Florida is scant, and nothing is**  **known about Alosa**  **populations in Florida rivers other than the St. Johns and Apalachicola except for presence**  **or absence. No current information about Florida’s St. Johns River population of American shad was includ**  **ed in the ASMFC’s recent stock assessment (ASMFC, 1998) because insufficient information was available,**  **but new monitoring requirements should lead to a better determination of the status and trends of this**  **population (ASMFC, 1999). American shad in the St. Johns River are familiar to both resident and tourist**  **anglers, and the fishing pressure on Florida’s alosid populations is probably lower today than it has been**  R. S. McBride Florida’s Shad and River Herrings

FMRI Technical Report TR-5 11**for the past several decades. This could lead to a sta ble or a rebuilding population in the future.** 



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