Alewives also provide a food source for ospreys, eagles, kingfishers, cormorants and aquatic fur-bearing mammals. And right now the river is full of alewives. O'Donnell said his department will stock 74,000 adult alewives in the Sebasticook River drainage chain and another 50,000 in the Kennebec River. The project leader said over 70 percent of the adult alewives will migrate back to the ocean after spawning in late June and July. The fish are also found throughout the Atlantic seaboard, from Newfoundland to South Carolina.
Alewives historically migrate to freshwater to spawn in rivers and streams.
Adult and juvenile alewives feed on zooplankton, but will occasionally eat insects and fish larvae. O'Donnell reported the annual Kennebec and Sebasticook rivers alewife migration should run about three to four weeks. Shortly after, both rivers should become a spawning ground for other anadromous fish species such as blueback herring, American shad, striped bass, shortnose sturgeon and American sturgeon. More to come on the annual anadromous fish migration in future Maine Lore columns. Fiddleheads are sprouting in central Maine and so is poison ivy.