Shad Numbers Continue to Fall, Plans to Close Hudson River Fishery

[JeffK]

Sad. The view from 10,000 ft. The commercial catch for the whole East Coast from Maine to Florida was about 820,000 lbs in 2007 (about 655,000 lbs in 2006) falling from about 2.3 million pounds in 1985.

In the 1880's and 1890's the catch in the Delaware R alone was 10 million to 19 million pounds a year! I used to read about the fishing fleet at Upper Black Eddy on the Delaware and wondered if it was real. With those shad numbers combined with the sturgeon, herring, striper, eel, and white perch runs at the time it makes sense to my brain, but I find it hard to visualize such huge runs of fish. We have lost a lot.