After 15 years, the alewife harvest has returned to the Pennamaquan River in Pembroke. The resumption of the harvest has been hailed by town officials and biologists alike as a welcome return and a signifier of ecological health following concentrated efforts to restore fish passage over the past decade.
      "Resuming the commercial harvest indicates that the run is now meeting population goals that indicate that the run is sustainable," explains Michael Brown of the Department of Marine Resources (DMR). "This means that production of adult and juvenile fish is more plentiful now and is able to contribute significantly to the ecology of the watershed and support fish and wildlife that frequently rely on river herring for food."
      The alewife harvest was stopped in 2011 by the DMR when it was found that an accurate count of the fish couldn't be determined due to a lack of information from harvesters. In 2014, a fish count on the river resulted in an estimate of 71,680 alewives -- but something was clearly wrong. "When we started trying to count fish above the dam, no fish passed the counting station for the first two weeks," says Chris Bartlett of Maine Sea Grant, a partner in the project. "We found the fishway had degraded over the years and wasn't functioning properly."
      Once the fishway was repaired, "fish started making it upstream," Bartlett says. In 2018, the alewife count leaped up to nearly 400,000, and in 2023 it reached almost 500,000. Other species assisted by the fishway on the Pennamaquan are American eel, shad, blueback herring, white suckers, striped bass and sea-run trout.
      For a harvest to be permitted, the DMR maintains strict guidelines based on recommendations from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which coordinates river herring management for East Coast states. Criteria include the number of fish, their age, mortality rate and maintaining a repeat spawning ratio of 20% or more for returning fish. With the Pennamaquan determined to meet those requirements, the harvest was authorized earlier this year.
      In March, the Pembroke selectmen requested harvest proposals from anyone interested, says Selectman Tony Bennett, who coordinated the town's alewife management plan. The plan put forth by Jamey Gower of Charlotte was chosen as it was "most concise and came with a host of recommendations from state agencies based on his history of being a steward for the fishery."
      The harvest started in the first week of May and will continue until June 5, with the option to request an extension from DMR to June 15 if the fish arrive later in the spring. Harvest days are Sunday through Wednesday to give the fish unobstructed passage for three days a week. There is no limit on the number of fish that can be harvested.
      For Bennett, the harvest brings with it the promise of future revenue for the town. "This being the first harvest in over a dozen years on the Pennamaquan, from a fiscal standpoint, we have lost out on potential income that would aid in offsetting the tax burden to taxpayers in Pembroke," he explains. While he doesn't expect this first year of harvest to result in a significant catch, future harvests could help "keep a buffer in our surplus funds so we don't have to take from taxes in the event of an unexpected expenditure down the road."
      In addition to the financial aspect, "the fact that we were able to harvest at all shows that the river is healthy," Bennett says. "With good stewardship of the fisheries in the river I believe we can have a healthy thriving river continually going forward."
      Bennett cautions, however, that a currently proposed project to dam the Pennamaquan to produce electricity would have disastrous effects on the fishery and would be "an absolute travesty for the local community." That proposal, put forth by Pembroke Tidal Power Project LLC, is now being reviewed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
      Barring obstructions, the Pennamaquan watershed can host as many as 500,000 alewives moving forward, says DMR's Brown, with the possibility for more in any particular year depending on water conditions. Known as the "fish that feeds all" to the Passamaquoddy people, alewives are a keystone species that support "all freshwater fish," says Brown, while in the ocean they provide food for striped bass and cod and piscivorous birds like eagles, osprey, great blue heron and others.