FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



105 



large enough to be worth special notice were re- 

 ported from the mouths of the St. Croix, Dennys, 

 Machias, Medomak, Penobscot, St. George, Pema- 

 quid, Damariscotta, and Kennebec Rivers; from 

 Casco Bay; and from sundry other shore localities 

 in Maine; from the Piscataqua River system in 

 New Hampshire; from the mouth of the Merrimac, 

 and from Cape Cod Bay. Few alewives enter the 

 Merrimac, now, so polluted is it, and so obstructed 

 by dams. 78 And Belding found them running in 

 only about 9 or 10 streams on the Gulf of Maine 

 coast of Massachusetts in 1920, out of 27 streams 

 there that had formerly supported considerable 

 alewife fisheries. 79 



At present, we learn from John B. Burns, of the 

 Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, only 

 a few alewives manage to run up the Merrimac past 

 the fish ladder at Lowell; there is a small but 

 regular run in the Parker River; a few in the Ips- 

 wich ; a good run in the Essex ; a few in the Saugus ; 

 perhaps some in Weymouth Back River; M a small 

 run in Wier River, Hingham (really a brook); a 

 few in Bound Brook, Cohasset; a large run in 

 Herring Brook, Pembroke (tributary to North 

 River) yielding about 1,000 barrels yearly; in- 

 creasing numbers in Jones River, Kingston, which 

 had been restocked previous to 1938 when a fish 

 ladder was installed; several thousand run yearly 

 up Barnstable Mill Pond Brook; an improving run 

 in Stony Brook, Brewster, where a ladder was built 

 in 1945, and a good run in Herring River (really 

 only a brook) in Wellfleet, Cape Cod. 



The first alewives ordinarily appear early in 

 April in the few streams tributary to Massachu- 

 setts Bay that they still frequent, and equally 

 early (March or April) in the St. John River, New 

 Brunswick, according to McKenzie; 81 but their 

 date of arrival varies considerably from stream to 

 stream, according to local conditions. Thus few 

 are seen in the streams of Maine until late April or 

 early May; the first alewives appeared in 1915, for 

 example, in Campbell's Creek, Booth Bay Harbor, 

 on April 20. And the earliest good runs on the 

 Nova Scotia shores of the open Gulf and of the 

 Bay of Fundy may come as early as April (streams 

 of Yarmouth, Annapolis, Hants, and Colchester 



* 8 Fishways recently constructed now allow a few to ascend beyond Lowell' 

 Massachusetts. 



»• See his report on the Alewife Fishery of Mass. (Mass. Dept. of Conser- 

 vation, Div. Fish, and Game, 1921) which gives much information as to tho 

 status of the alewife in Massachusetts streams. 



80 Stocked with 28.000 adult fish in 1049, and fish ladders under construction. 



»' Kept. Biol. Board Canada (1931) 1932, p. 34. 



Counties), in May (Digby and King's County 

 streams), or not until June (Cumberland County. 82 

 Successive runs follow thereafter, all around the 

 Gulf, until well into June, the later runs, going up, 

 passing the earlier spawners coming down. In 

 1915, we saw this happening in Campbell's Creek, 

 Boothbay, on May 20. And alewives have been 

 seen, descending, as late as August 20, in Massa- 

 chusetts streams. 



The extreme range of temperature within which 

 eggs are spawned, in Gulf of Maine tributaries, is 

 not known; probably the bulk of production takes 

 place between about 55° and about 60°. 



Numerical abundance. — In 1896 S3 reported 

 catches were 2,677,972 individual alewives 

 (1,356,755 lb.) for Cape Cod Bay and for the 

 Merrimac River combined; 526,500 (293,671 lb.) 

 for New Hampshire streams; and 5,832,900 

 (3,388,326 lb.) from the rivers and streams and 

 coast of Maine. The reported catch was 5,843,000 

 pounds 84 for the New Brunswick shore of the 

 Bay of Fundy that year; 1,609,400 pounds for the 

 Nova Scotia side and for the west coast of Nova 

 Scotia, or about 10,510,000 and about 2,895,000 

 individual fish, respectively, assuming that the 

 average weight was about the same as that for 

 the alewives of Maine We thus arrive at a total 

 catch for the Gulf of Maine of something like 22 

 million individual fish at that time and actually 

 somewhat more, for the canvass certainly was not 

 100 percent complete. 



The run was much greater then in the St. John 

 River system than in any other Gulf of Maine 

 river and doubtless is still. The Damariscotta 

 River, ranking second, was about one-third as 

 productive as the St. John; the Merrimac, St. 

 George, and Penobscot Rivers only something 

 like one-tenth as productive each. Casco Bay 

 yielded about one-sixth as many alewives as the 

 St. John River, the shore line of Cape Cod Bay 

 about one-fifth as many. 85 And the catch of the 

 St. John River system (including Kennebecasis 

 Bay) still was about five times as great in 1931 as 

 that for any of the other counties of New Bruns- 



« According to McKenzie, Rept. Biol. Board Canada (1931) 1932, p. 34. 



■» A special study of the alewife fishery was made for that year, see Smith, 

 Kept. V. S. Comm. of Fish. (1896) 1S99, pp. 33-43. 



84 The Canadian catches for the year were reported in barrels; the conver- 

 sion factor used is 200 pounds per barrel. 



" Reported catches for 1S96 wer.e about 4,234,000 pounds for the St. John 

 River system; 1,390,612 pounds for the Damariscotta River, 3S5.804 pounds 

 for the St. George River, 308,844 pounds for the Penobscot, 472,500 pounds 

 for the Merrimac, 701,287 pounds for Casco Bay, and 8S1.255 pounds for Cape 

 Cod Bay. 



