Alewives sought for Alewife Brook

Saturday, August 16, 2003

By MARK PETERS, Portland Press Herald Writer

Staff photo by John Ewing

Alewives spend their lives in salt water but return to freshwater streams and ponds to spawn in large numbers. Cape Elizabeth's Alewife Brook is in need of the fish.

CAPE ELIZABETH — Alewife Brook has betrayed its name for decades, lacking an annual run of the small, silvery fish from salty ocean water to a freshwater pond. A group of students and teachers from Southern Maine Community College are trying to change this, and in the process, re-establish one of the few fisheries of its kind in southern Maine.

"You don't have an Alewife Brook without alewives," said John Ney, an SMCC professor who is working to re-establish the fish population.

Alewives hardly are endangered in Maine. Runs of the bony fish, which are better for baiting lobster traps than for eating, can be found in Lincoln, Waldo, Hancock and Washington counties.

But alewife fisheries are less prevalent in the southern costal counties. Fishery experts believe a combination of beaver dams, low water level and roadwork caused the alewives to stopping swimming up Alewife Brook in Cape Elizabeth each year.

Alewives historically swam from the ocean, up the brook that snakes under Old Ocean House and Ocean House roads, and spawned in Great Pond before returning to the sea.

Jodie Jordan, an owner of Alewives Brook Farm, remembers harvesting a few bushels of the fish each year for bait back in the 1960s. Jordan set traps to capture the fish.

To restore this tradition, Ney and his students have been trucking alewives down from a stream in Phippsburg for the past four years. They have asked the Town Council to take control of the fishery, so the fish can be trapped legally next spring - if the project has established a migratory population.

Ney explained that newly hatched alewives will not return to Great Pond to spawn until they are three years old. He did not see any come back this spring, but hopes that will change next year. The fish use the distinct smell of an inland water body to find their way back, Ney said.

The plan is to harvest 300 bushels or 36,000 alewives. Before this can be done, the state needs to release the fishing rights to the town. The Town Council is deciding whether to apply for the rights and form a committee of residents to oversee the fishery. Councilors plan to take up the issue at an upcoming workshop.

"The main reason it is going to workshop is we don't know enough about it," Chairwoman Mary Ann Lynch said.

The connection between alewife fisheries and local government stretches back to when Maine was still part of Massachusetts. Towns back then held the fishing rights and would use the money from each harvest to repair a schoolhouse or do other community projects, said Tom Squiers of the state Department of Marine Resources.

Town Manager Michael McGovern did not expect any profit for the town from future alewife harvests.

Jordan, whose farm abuts the brook, supports the project but questions whether it will work without major alterations to the brook. He said beaver dams and low water will keep the alewives from making it to Great Pond.

The re-establishment of the fish population also will increase the feeding grounds for sport fish like bass and improve the overall ecosystem, Ney said.

Staff Writer Mark Peters can be contacted at 791-6325 or at:

mpeters@pressherald.com

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