By Christine Griffiths

The largest species in the herring family, the American shad is an impressive fish. Like salmon of the North Pacific, shad are long-distance swimmers, traveling up to 12,000 miles to fulfill their sole purpose in life – to spawn.
  
Striking in appearance, with an accent of lavender along its tail and a metallic blue-green back, shad spend most of their lives navigating the waters of the Atlantic Ocean between southern Labrador and northern Florida.

When they are between four and six years old, shad will make a spring migration to the river of their birth, where they will release 200,000 to 600,000 eggs into the water.

Exerting a great deal of energy during migration, most shad will die shortly after spawning, never making it back out to sea.

Migration Threatened
In Georgia, the Altamaha, Savannah, Satilla and St. Marys rivers are significant passages for spawning shad. Yet, the successful migration of shad in the Savannah River is impaired by the New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam in Augusta, Georgia.

Typically, an attempt is made each year to pass fish through the lock, allowing some successful migration. 

The lock is operated about three days a week, allowing the fish a chance to pass above the dam to complete their journey to the Savannah River shoals, a rocky freshwater habitat which provides ideal refuge for eggs and juvenile fish.

But this year the lock is unable to open, thereby completely blocking the shad – as well as the endangered sturgeon – from its historic spawning ground.

While the City of Augusta is currently taking bids to repair the structure, biologists fear that the time delay, combined with current drought conditions, will have a devastating impact on future populations of shad in the Savannah River.

“The effects of the broken structure may not be immediately noticeable, but in four years, anglers could notice a significant decrease in the number of shad returning to the Savannah,” said Amanda Meadows, Ph.D., Savannah River project director for The Nature Conservancy.

Biologists Respond
Pooling staff and resources, biologists from the Georgia and South Carolina departments of natural resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Marine Fisheries Service, and The Nature Conservancy spent two days transporting a total of 835 shad upstream of the lock and dam.

"We had a great team of biologists from collaborating agencies which pulled together to make this project a success," said Bill Post, a fisheries biologist with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. "But this was a one-time operation. Hopefully, the fish we transported will reproduce and contribute to the stocks of fish in the Savannah."

In assembly line fashion, the team of 15 biologists worked quickly to capture and transport the fish. Using electro-fishing boats to send low voltage currents of electricity into the water just below the dam, experienced fisheries biologists carefully netted stunned shad and placed them in tanks of salt water.

Once they were transferred to holding tanks on the back of a waiting flatbed truck, biologists drove them a short distance to a landing above the dam and released them back into the water.

Slightly stunned, the fish were quick to revive and, within seconds of returning to the water, instinctively continued their swim upriver to fulfill their biological destiny.

Christine Griffiths is a marketing specialist with The Nature Conservancy.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Amanda Meadows/TNC (Biologist net American shad); Photo © Christine Griffiths/TNC (SC DNR Biologist Bill Post holds and American shad); Photo © Bill Post/SC DNR (American shad).