. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. TOP: Hightower displays a 30-pound flathead catfish, an introduced nuisance species. BOTTOM: Farmer is poised to catch fish stunned by the electrofishing device. The dam had been preventing shad and striped bass from reaching an area more conducive to successful spawning. Past and Future Every year, the small town of Grifton, on a tributary of the Neuse, celebrates a shad festival. While the celebrated fish is the smaller, bonier hickory shad, the festival hints at the importance of shad in North Carolina.
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. TOP: Hightower displays a 30-pound flathead catfish, an introduced nuisance species. BOTTOM: Farmer is poised to catch fish stunned by the electrofishing device. The dam had been preventing shad and striped bass from reaching an area more conducive to successful spawning. Past and Future Every year, the small town of Grifton, on a tributary of the Neuse, celebrates a shad festival. While the celebrated fish is the smaller, bonier hickory shad, the festival hints at the importance of shad in North Carolina. In The Waterman's Song, a history of black watermen in North Carolina, David Cecelski writes: "The largest fishery for plantation slaves lay on the lower Neuse, along the estuarine waters between New Bern and the Pamlico Sound. There shad fishing was a spring ritual for thousands of plantation .Dragnetting for shad, small gangs of slave fishermen moved up and down the Neuse, often staying in shoreside camps at ; Few large commercial fisheries existed before the Civil War, but all that changed afterward — much to the detriment of the American shad. "In the later 1800s, they were just hammering these populations," Hightower says. For striped bass, populations plunged through the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in strict harvest regulations. Many of these populations have recovered, Hightower says, although numbers on the Neuse remain low. While more spawning areas are available for anadromous fishes, it will take time for their populations to grow. American shad leave the river when they are about six inches long and come back when they are sexually mature. "1999 was the first year the dam was removed," Hightower says. "That class (the first generation from the restored area) wouldn't come back for four or five ; And just opening up river area does not ensure repopulation of these species. Much has changed since the ante
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
