On My Mind…

  This article appears in the Spring 2025 issue

Migratory fish lead a tough life.

In the Connecticut River, the scientific community recognizes ten species of migratory fish that include American shad, alewife, American eel, Atlantic salmon, striped bass, blueback herring, sea lamprey, hickory shad, Atlantic sturgeon, and shortnose sturgeon. They travel thousands of ocean miles and annually swim up the Connecticut River, some a few miles and some over two hundred miles.

Along the way, migratory fish must avoid not only natural predators but overfishing by human predators, sometimes from different countries and even different continents. If they live off of smaller fish, their food source may be scooped up in the nets of massive trawlers as “bycatch,” the unintended consequence of seeking different target fish. (We’re not talking small numbers. “Bycatch” reportedly accounts for some 20–40 percent by weight of all fish caught commercially by the estimated four million commercial fishing boats in the world.) Out in the oceans, migratory fish enjoy some protection by the plethora of laws, nonprofit organizations, and multi-national organizations, but one can just imagine the problem of enforcement as conditions change in the seas.

The view through the window of fish passing upstream via the Holyoke Dam. Photo courtesy of Holyoke Gas & Electric.

Closer to home and within the Connecticut River watershed, scientists and organizations like Connecticut River Conservancy are concerned mainly with dams, turbines, and restoration of habitat and water quality. Fishways, fish ladders, and fish lifts help migratory fish get upstream past dams. Returning downstream, though, is a different matter, demanding solutions unique to the facility. Operators of the hydropower plants at the dams must have federal licenses to operate and may be persuaded (by the “friends of migratory fish,” identified below) to invest in mitigating assets and procedures for both upstream and downstream migration.

If any living species need friends in high places, migratory fish would be high on the list.

The friends of migratory fish in the federal government are located within the US departments of Commerce and Interior: the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) within the Department of Commerce and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) within the Department of the Interior. At the state level for the Connecticut River watershed, those friends are found in the fisheries agencies for the states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. These agencies started a committee in 1967 to address the restoration of migratory fish at the four-state watershed scale and evolved over the years into the recently constituted Connecticut River Migratory Fish Restoration Cooperative. The members of the cooperative are listed at the end of this article.

Ken Sprankle, a fisheries biologist with the USFWS, is the Restoration Coordinator for the cooperative. While his title may sound bureaucratic, much of his work is anything but. Ken runs “electrofishing” projects at night, for example, when small fish such as juvenile shad rise to the surface where they are stunned and caught and their age, length, and behavior are analyzed. Estuary’s friend and photographer Chris Zajac tagged along on one of Ken’s outings in October 2023 and produced this brief photo essay:

Ken Sprankle of the US Fish and Wildlife Service prepares the specially designed electrofishing research boat for launch in Northfield, MA.

After launching the boat, Ken Sprankle pilots the boat to the first research site on the Connecticut River in Hinsdale, NH. The electrofishing starts at sunset and continues into the night.

A small shad held in a hand after being collected by researchers for the USFWS study of the shad population in the Connecticut River.

Jackie Stephens, a graduate student at UMass Amherst and Pathways Intern with USFWS, prepares the electrodes for the night of research on the Connecticut River. The electrodes pass electricity through the water to the hull of the boat and temporarily stun fish, allowing the researchers to net them and bring them aboard for data collection.

The electrofishing takes place at night from 5:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Researchers stand on the bow of the boat with nets at the ready scanning the water if any small shad come to the surface after being stunned by the electricity emitted from the electrode tentacles in the water.

Ken Sprankle’s first exposure to fish restoration took place many years ago when he was employed as a seasonal worker with CTDEEP under the tutelage of Steve Gephard. (Now retired, Steve, along with Sally Harold, writes the “Below the Surface” column in every issue of Estuary.)

Among many other current duties and responsibilities, Ken authors the annual progress report, “Connecticut River Basin Anadromous Fish Restoration,” a technical but readable report on the status, fish counts, and other trends of migratory fish within the Connecticut River watershed—including surprises, such as the growing evidence of shortnose sturgeon above the Vernon Dam in New Hampshire…possibly for the first time in eons. But more about that to come.