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+--- Thread: PUBLIC HEARING APRIL 19 IN GILFORD ON LAKE WINNISQUAM RIVER HERRING REINTRODUCTION (/showthread.php?tid=738208)
PUBLIC HEARING APRIL 19 IN GILFORD ON LAKE WINNISQUAM RIVER HERRING REINTRODUCTION - FishNews - 04-18-2012
CONCORD, N.H. -- The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department will hold a
public meeting on a proposal to reintroduce alewives and blueback herring,<br />
commonly referred to as river herring, into Lake Winnisquam. The meeting<br />
will take place on Thursday, April 19, at 7:00 p.m., at the Belknap County<br />
Sportsmen's Association meeting hall at 182 Lily Pond Road, Gilford, N.H.<br />
(near the Laconia Municipal Airport).
Fish and Game is inviting public comment on the proposed reintroduction,<br />
part of the first phase of a revised river herring restoration plan for the<br />
Merrimack River. The goal of the plan is to restore the abundant population<br />
of river herring that once migrated from the ocean to spawn in the Merrimack<br />
River each spring. Increasing the number of herring that reach the Amoskeag<br />
Dam Fishway in Manchester would facilitate a large-scale "trap and transfer"<br />
effort in the Merrimack River watershed.
River herring once migrated from the ocean to coastal rivers each spring in<br />
incredible numbers to spawn in lakes, ponds and streams. River herring and<br />
their offspring provided an abundant food source for countless<br />
predators. Over the years, dams, pollution and overfishing have taken their<br />
toll on New Hampshire's river herring populations, and today their numbers<br />
are just a fraction of their potential.
The New Hampshire project would be modeled after the successful restoration<br />
project on the Kennebec River. Beginning in 1987, the Maine Department of<br />
Marine Resources undertook an ambitious plan to restore river herring to the<br />
Kennebec River. Thousands of adult alewives and blueback herring were<br />
stocked in the lakes and tributaries of the Kennebec River to boost the<br />
spawning population. Now, after improving access to spawning habitat with<br />
multiple fish passage and dam removal projects, over 2 million river herring<br />
swim up the Kennebec River each spring, one of the largest river herring<br />
runs on the East Coast.
Like the Kennebec, the Merrimack River offers great potential for river<br />
herring restoration, but these days only a few hundred fish are counted at<br />
the Essex Dam Fishway in Lawrence, Massachusetts, each spring.
This is not the first time herring have been reintroduced to Winnisquam. In<br />
the mid- to late 1980s, N.H. Fish and Game transported alewives from the<br />
Androscoggin River in Maine into Winnisquam Lake. Five years later, nearly<br />
400,000 river herring returned to the Merrimack River. Unfortunately,<br />
fisheries managers were not equipped to transport this number of fish<br />
upstream, and river herring were unable to access suitable habitat above the<br />
Hooksett Dam. Alewives were last stocked in Lake Winnisquam in 1990 and, by<br />
the end of the decade, the number of fish returning to the Merrimack River<br />
had dropped significantly.
Since that time, Public Service of New Hampshire has built a "trap and<br />
transport" facility at the Amoskeag Dam in Manchester, so biologists would<br />
be able to capture migrating river herring at the Amoskeag Dam Fishway and<br />
transport them to suitable spawning habitat throughout the Merrimack River<br />
watershed.
The difference between river herring restoration in the Kennebec River and<br />
the Merrimack River has been a matter of scale. Biologists in Maine were<br />
able to stock tens of thousands of river herring into large lakes in the<br />
upper watershed by capturing river herring in the lower Kennebec River. In<br />
New Hampshire, aside from the brief population increase in the early 1990s,<br />
biologists have not had access to large numbers of river herring for<br />
transfer. Thanks to the cooperation of the Maine Department of Marine<br />
Resources, river herring from Maine waters are now available to stock in New<br />
Hampshire.
"By stocking Lake Winnisquam, we hope to regenerate an abundant run of river<br />
herring that will migrate up the Merrimack River and reach the Amoskeag Dam<br />
Fishway. River herring could then be transferred from the Amoskeag Fishway<br />
in large numbers to spawning habitat upstream," explained fisheries<br />
biologist Matthew Carpenter, who coordinates N.H. Fish and Game's anadromous<br />
fisheries program.
The second phase of the restoration plan involves building fish passage and<br />
removing barriers to migration so that, in the long term, river herring trap<br />
and transport would no longer be necessary. "The ultimate goal of the<br />
proposed project is to create an abundant, self-sustaining population of<br />
river herring in the Merrimack River watershed," said Carpenter.
For directions to the Belknap County Sportsmen's Association go to:<br />
http://www.belknapsportsmensclub.com.
Anadromous fisheries management in New Hampshire is supported in part by<br />
Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Program funds.
The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department works in partnership with the<br />
public to conserve and manage the state's fish, wildlife and marine<br />
resources and their habitats. Visit http://www.fishnh.com.