Relative sensitivity of New England American shad to fishing, discard mortality, and dam passage failure or mortality

Abstract

American shad Alosa sapidissima in Atlantic coastal rivers of the New England states are affected by anthropogenic sources of mortality, such as discards of immature fish (bycatch) in various fisheries, directed fishing on prespawning adults, and the passage failure ormortality of mature fish atmigratory barriers. We evaluated the relative importance of these factors, independently and in combination, by modeling the predicted lifetime spawning stock biomass of an age-1 female recruit (SSBR) with an assumed constant rate of natural mortality. Discard losses had the greatest impact on the SSBR, followed by directed fishing and upstream passage mortality, upstream passage failure (the fish survived but did not pass the barrier or spawn), and downstream losses of postspawning adults. Fishery managers strive to keep mortality rates below those that reduce SSBR to less than 30% of that of a stock with no anthropogenic mortality. In our modeling, SSBR dropped below that benchmark when by catch rates exceeded 0.21, directed fishing or upstream passage mortality exceeded 0.45, and upriver passage failure without mortality exceeded 0.70. Since the downriver passage mortality of adults occurred after spawning, SSBR did not decline below the benchmark even at 100% downriver loss. The impacts of upstream passage mortality always exceeded those from comparable downstream passage mortality. Fishing and discard losses seriously reduced any gain in SSBR from reduced fish passage mortality or failure. The results in this paper suggest that among the anthropogenic factors evaluated, American shad in New England are most sensitive to discard losses of immature shad in ocean fisheries and that fish passage improvements at dams are most effective when they are developed in combination with reductions in fishery-related losses. © American Fisheries Society 2012.