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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



to 28 days. Shad larvae resemble alewife larvae, 

 being extremely slender with the vent almost as 

 far back as the base of the tail. 6 The young shad 

 remain in the rivers until fall, when they move 

 down to salt water; they are now 1% to 4% inches 

 long, resembling their parents in appearance. 



According to Leim's investigation, based on 

 scale studies and length frequencies, shad in the 

 upper Bay of Fundy, average about 5 to 6 inches 

 long when one year old; 9 to 10 inches long at 2 

 years; 13 to 14 inches at 3 years; 15 to 16 inches 

 at 4 years; and 18 to 19 inches at 5 years. The 

 two largest he examined, about 24% inches (62 cm. 

 and 63 cm.) long, appeared to be 7 and 6 years old, 

 respectively. They may grow somewhat faster 

 in the open Gulf of Maine, to judge from the 

 greater abundance of pelagic crustaceans on which 

 they feed (p. 109). Most of the spawning fish are 

 5 years old in the Shubenacadie, and presumably 

 in other Gulf of Maine rivers; the oldest 8 or 9 

 years old. 



General range. — Atlantic coast of North America 

 from the southeastern coast of Newfoundland, 7 

 which shad have been known to reach as strays, 

 and the estuary of the St. Lawrence River, where 

 there is a considerable population of them, 8 to 

 the St. Johns River in Florida; also represented 

 in the Gulf of Mexico by a closely related species. 

 The shad has been successfully introduced on the 

 Pacific coast of the United States. It runs up 

 rivers into fresh water to spawn. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — When the 

 first settlers arrived in New England they found 

 seemingly inexhaustible multitudes of shad annu- 

 ally running up all the larger rivers and many 

 of the smaller streams, with the tributaries of the 

 Gulf of Maine hardly less productive than the 

 Hudson or Delaware. But one stream after 

 another was rendered impassable by the construc- 

 tion of dams near the mouth, for shad cannot or 

 will not run up through fishways that are readily 

 used by alewives. Indeed, they have been 

 practically wiped out in the Merrimac River, as 

 appears from the following compilation : 8 



• Leim (Contr. Canad. Biol., N. Ser., vol. 2, No. 11, 1924, p. 195) gives a 

 detailed comparison of shad with alewife larvae. 



1 The most northerly record of a shad, on which we have chanced, is one 

 taken In Bull's Bay, near St. Johns, Newfoundland. 



• See Vladykov (Contr. Dept. Fish., Quebec, No. 30, 1950, pp. 121-135, 

 and Natural. Canad., vol. 77, 1950, pp. 121-135) for a study of the movements 

 of the shad in the St. Lawrence estuary. 



• Frcm Stevenson, Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish. (1898) 1899, p. 262. 



Number of shad caught, Number of shad caught. 



Year reported, or estimated Year reported, or estimated 



1789... 830,000 1888 None 



1805 540,000 1889 18 



1835 365,000 1890-1892 None 



1865 50,000 1893 2,020 



1871-1873 (aver- 1894 2,750 



age) 1,942 1895- — 94 



1880 2,139 1896 7 



1885 130 



The Gulf of Maine rivers to which shad are 

 known to resort regularly today are the Annapolis, 

 Petit Codiac, Shubenecadie, and St. John, tribu- 

 tary to the Bay of Fundy; perhaps the St. Croix; 10 

 the only Maine rivers that see regular run9 of a 

 few shad are the Nonesuch and the Sheepscot." 



A few shad may enter other Gulf of Maine 

 streams in some years if not yearly, and bright 

 spots in the shad picture are that a considerable 

 number of adult shad ran up the South River in 

 Marshfield, Massachusetts, on the southern shore 

 of Massachusetts Bay in 1950, and that there 

 has been a run of something like 2,000 shad yearly 

 in Mill Creek, Sandwich, Mass., for the past four 

 years. 12 How successfully they may have spawned 

 in either of these streams is not known. 



It appears that most of the shad hatched in the 

 rivers tributary to the Bay of Fundy, and the 

 spent fish from there, remain in or near the estu- 

 aries where they take to salt water; and that most 

 of the adults that survive the strain of spawning 

 return to the parent stream to spawn again. 

 Thus it is only in St. Marys Bay, in Annapolis 

 Basin, in Cobequid Bay and Minas Basin, in 

 Chignecto Bay and at the mouth of the St. John 

 as well as for a few miles westward, that large 

 Fundian shad are caught in any numbers. 13 The 

 fact, on which Leim 13a comments that "there is 

 not a single record of a shad ever having been 

 taken" at Grand Manan island, although this 

 "lies almost directly in the path of any body of 



« The St. Croix once had a large run of shad. None were seen there for 8 

 or 9 years prior to 1915, but they wero there in some numbers in 1915 and 

 1816, according to investigations by H. F. Taylor of the U. S. Bureau of 

 Fisheries; their present status there is not known. They have been entirely 

 extirpated from the Saco, where they were abundant formerly, probably from 

 the Penobscot and Kennebec, and certainly from the Merrimac, as noted 

 above. 



« Information from Dr. O. E. Atkinson, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 



» Reported to us by John B. Burns of the Massachusetts Division of 

 Fisheries and Game. 



« Leim (Contr. Canad. Biol. N. Ser., vol. 2, No. 11, 1924, fig. 2) gives a 

 chart showing the location of shad catches for the Bay of Fundy. 



"■ Contr. Canad. Biol. N. Ser., vol. 2. No. 11, 1924. p. 173. 



