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If the gates are frozen shut, how will the fry return to the ocean once they hatch?
After a four-year journey that has taken them thousands of miles, American shad that spawn in the Savannah River are getting some special assistance this year.
"Once they get this far, it's a shame if they're blocked from the last leg of their trip," said Amanda Meadows, a Nature Conservancy biologist who joined an unusual fish rescue project Tuesday.
The problem is New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam, which separates the lower river from the rocky shoals above Augusta, where the migratory shad spawn.
Usually the lock gates are opened every few days during the spring, allowing roe-laden shad to swim upstream. In February, however, the lock valves failed -- and the gates are frozen shut.
On Tuesday, biologists from Georgia, South Carolina, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and The Nature Conservancy converged at the dam's tailrace, where they used boats, trucks and electricity to capture as many shad as possible. Altogether, they caught 362 shad.
"We're moving as many fish as we can from below the dam to above the dam," said U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist Tripp Boltin. "We want to give them a chance to spawn."
Boats rigged with steel cables attached to generators moved in slow circles, allowing electric current to briefly stun the fish. The twitching shad were then netted, placed in tanks and driven to a landing above the dam.
Then they were released.
Shad spend four years at sea before they mature and return to the river where they were hatched, Mr. Boltin said. Each female lays 100,000 or more eggs, of which only a handful might survive.
The fish once migrated by the millions up the Savannah. During the past century, however, dams and lakes eliminated 95 percent of their spawning habitat, which makes the remaining shoals above Augusta more critical than ever.
Tuesday's effort could allow at least some fish to complete their voyage, Mr. Boltin said.
The success won't be known for four years, when shad hatched in the river this year complete their tenure in the North Atlantic Ocean and return to Augusta to renew the cycle.
A poor spawn this year, Mr. Boltin said, will reduce the number of shad that return four years from now.
Reduced populations are a national concern because shad are important commercial species in Northern states, where they are harvested for roe.
Their spawning areas, however, range from Maine to Florida, and their habitat has declined in virtually every Eastern river.
Because of their wide impact on commercial fisheries -- and their value as forage fish for important offshore species such as tuna and codfish -- it is imperative that states, conservation groups and federal agencies work together to preserve the shad's remaining inland habitat, Dr. Meadows said.
"It takes a tremendous multiagency effort," she said. "It takes a village to raise a shad."
Reach Rob Pavey at 868-1222, ext. 119, or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
SHAD AND THE SAVANNAH RIVER
- The Savannah River's dwindling shad population spawns in the shoals above Augusta, but only a few fish can swim past New Savannah Bluff to get there.
- Shad hatched in our river swim out to sea and complete a 3,000-mile journey before returning to the same river four years later to spawn and die.
- Shad, which travel in huge schools to Canada and Iceland as they slowly mature, were a perennial food staple for Indian tribes and Colonial settlers in the Augusta area.
- In the 1700s, an estimated 10 million shad made the journey up the Savannah River each spring, where they migrated 300 miles inland, to Tallulah Falls.
- In the past century, dams eliminated 95 percent of the shoals spawning habitat, and today's migrations include only 200,000 to 300,000 fish.
- Estimates compiled in the 1980s indicated that fewer than 18,000 shad make it past New Savannah Bluff, even when locks were opened during spawning season.
- Biologists now believe the decline of shad and other forage fish is linked to declining populations of important food species, such as tuna, codfish and redfish.
- Efforts by federal and state agencies to improve shad reproduction in the Savannah are being duplicated in dozens of other East Coast rivers, in hopes of preventing their further decline.
Sources: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, The Nature Conservancy
Comments
If the gates are frozen shut, how will the fry return to the ocean once they hatch?
HELLO this might sound stupid but has anyone thought about fixing the GATES ? heck let me know , I will see what i can do !!!!
J-10 Jeep, sounds like a good question to me. I don't think they have thought this issue through. What is the cost to fix the gate?
The fish can swim over the dam when the make the return downstream.
Are these the same gates the Corp of Engineers abandoned because they were too expensive to keep up? Doesn't the city manage that now? Looks like if we have to drain Clarks Hill to meet federal guidelines that the Corp would be responsible for making sure the shad can get upstream, even if they have to fix the gates. Just wait till this summer when they need more water at Clarks Hill for power generation and they don't have it because they aren't building that reserve now. Mis-management?
I know the city commission os trying to get bids to fix the lock gate, but it will be expensive and probably take many months before the work can start. the hatched baby fish can easily get downstream just by swimming over the dam's spillway gates.
The city should never have been saddled with this lockand dam after the Army Corps of Engineers had operated it all those years. The Corps is nothing more than a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. They have done more nightmare harm than good to American rivers and streams. It was the Corps that raised the water level (as an "experiment") a few years back and destroyed the park area. And it was the Corps that allegedly spent millions on repairs before dumping the whole thing onto the city. Those millions must have been spent on picnic tables if the locks are frozen shut so soon after the Corps slipped away. Like Jeep, I too would like to know how the fry will manage to get back downriver. Also, these groups are to be commended for their tazing efforts. Too bad they couldn't spend a week instead of one day. The future of the Great American Fish's Savannah cousins might be too tall an order for 362 stunned and released shad. After the shad and sturgeon migration season ends, might it not be most cost-effective to dynamite the locks? All they do now is hinder river navigation. I am a rank amateur at demolition, but experts (NOT the Corps) should be easy enough to find these days.
Open it up and let the water run free to the ocean. The water seems to flow fine after it leaves Augusta. It might even improve fishing in the river.
I don't see how they ate those fish, they are to BONY... I tried LOL...
Here's the story...the Corps has in the past made high releases about 25,000 cfs from Thurmond dam during the shad spawning season. These high releases levelize the headwater and tailwater above and below the dam allowing the shad to swim upstream. It appears in an effort to keep water in the reservior they aren't releasing the water this year. As far as the fry moving downstream. Shad fry stay in the nursery areas of the river until about October then they migrate downstream. Everyone asks "how are the fry going to get downstream ?" The answer is simple. While the Lock gates maybe stuck, the NSBL&D dam is outfitted with Taintor gates. Once the headwaters are at the desired level all excess flow is spilled underneath the taintor gates. and this is how the shad will pass back downstream. For those that remember the "big experiment" a few years back when the area around Riverfront was dewatered. The taintor gates were fully opened and that's what drained the headwaters.
"It takes a tremendous multiagency effort," she said. "It takes a village to raise a shad." Actually, if you just pay a few bucket-sitting anglers to catch them and throw them on the other side of the dam for a few weeks, you'd save us a lot of tax dollars.
where do i sign up
Jackfruitpaper, you are so right. The shad is one more bony fish and way too difficult to fillet. Just put 'em on a plank and bake them close to the flames, then enjoy the freshest, tastiest fish there is. This is how they enjoyed shad in colonial times and the way true foodies still do. The baked bones are crunchy and easily swallowed though you may not believe this till you've tried it.
The shad is a terrific game fish.Hard fight with great leaps from the water when hooked.We catch and and release almost all except occasionally we will eat the row.
The Dam only opening the gate a few days a year is causing the shad population to fall. Open it for the whole month of the spawn as almost every other Dam in the US does when fish ladders are not available.
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