It's worked for the guides all these years. It's worked for the Indians all these years. It just doesn't make any sense to us. Supporters of the bill say alewives are extremely important to the Gulf of Maine ecosystem. They provide food for ground fish and for osprey and bald eagles.
Alewives also are a popular bait fish.
At a public hearing on the bill last week, a Canadian fisheries official warned that Canada will truck alewives around the fishways, if the Maine Legislature doesn't vote to reopen them. Staff photo by John Ewing Young alewives grow in the lakes and ponds until they begin migrating to the ocean from mid-July through October. The number of alewives migrating into the river has dropped from 2.6 million in 1987 to less than 9,000 last year. The restoration also is backed by the Department of Marine Resources and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, The Island Institute and the Coastal Conservation Association, an organization for saltwater anglers. They run into freshwater in all those areas and there's hardly a peep out of anybody.