Why put fish first?
The alewife is one fish, a small one, a bait fish and yet it has become the fish to watch. Why? Because it is a keystone species, one on which an entire ecosystem depends.
Alewives are an adaptable and prolific fish. Alewives feed fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals. A large alewife population in the Gulf of Maine should return the big fish that the fishery needs to be strong. Local fish can provide healthy food for us From a strictly human point of view it would be good for Maine to have a healthy fishery both inland and in the Gulf of Maine. Alewives are key to the recovery of that fishery.
In a single lake, billions or trillions of eggs, as well as a huge volume of sperm, are being released into the water of the Sebasticook Watershed each spring-essentially “protein packets” for aquatic animals such as zooplankton, bryozoans, clams and insect larvae all of which help clean our lakes.
At present 19 dams block passage on the Sebasticook alone. Most are derelict. At present there are five operating lifts and ladders. One large dam has been removed.
Change takes time. We humans see everything that has gone before as progress but we are coming to the end of that road. We are destroying our planet. The current direction will not hold. We have to start taking care of where we live. Restoring the Alewife fishery is a step down that road.
So we dicker and accommodate and change comes slowly. Some dams get ladders, or lifts. Some are removed. Habitat for fish expands slowly. The river gets healthier slowly. Birds and other critters return. Salmon, shad, sturgeon, and ocean fish return and the economy gets healthier and someday, if we persist, the watershed will be strong again.
And lastly rivers are meant to be dynamic. Dams destroy that movement and eventually a silent river will die. There will be no fish, no eagles, no fishermen. We will be diminished.
Everything Eats Alewives 