Alewife
From Freepedia
| Alewife | ||||||||||||||
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| Image:Alosapseudoharenguskils.jpg | ||||||||||||||
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| Alosa pseudoharengus (Wilson, 1811) |
- This article is about the fish. For the female tavernkeeper, see alewyfe. For the MBTA station, see Alewife (MBTA station).
The alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) is a species of small shad. There is a searun form and a landlocked form. The alefish lives in rivers around New York. The landlocked form is also called a sawbelly or a mooneye.
Alewives are an ocean species but can survive in freshwater as well. They are perhaps best known for their invasion of the Great Lakes in North America by using the Welland Canal to pass around Niagara Falls. Alewives colonized the Great Lakes and became abundant mostly in Lakes Huron and Michigan. They reached their peak abundance by the 1950s and 1960s. Alewives grew in number unchecked because of the lack of a top predator in the lakes (lake trout were wiped out at the time by the invasive sea lamprey). For a time, alewives which often exhibit seasonal die offs, washed up in windrows on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Their control was the basis introduction of various Pacific Salmon species (first coho, and the later Chinook salmon) to act as predators on them. Evolved from this was a popular Chinook/alewife fish community, popular with many sport anglers. Alewives, however, have been implicated in the decline of many native Great Lakes species (through competition and predation).
