Soundkeeper Bill Lucey encouraged about prospects for recovery in Long Island Sound region
While Amendment 10 did not get reinstated to the New England Fishery Management Council’s official priorities list for 2026, the Council did add some of its key components that could protect shad and river herring during Thursday’s final session of its December meeting. Those management measures will be analyzed through a process that also sets annual catch quotas. Depending on the outcome these measures could go a long way toward enabling the recovery of southern New England river herring (alewife and blueback herring).
The management measures to be analyzed include biologically based catch caps and time/area closures, which identify areas for the trawl fleet to avoid when fishing for Atlantic herring. These measures would continue to allow fishing but also reduce the incidence of river herring bycatch, allowing more fish to return to their natal spawning grounds in rivers that feed into Long Island Sound.
“I consider this the first step for real management of river herring in the Long Island Sound region,” said Bill Lucey, Save the Sound’s Long Island Soundkeeper and one of 18 members on the Council. “With the millions of dollars already spent in Connecticut and New York to restore habitat, remove dams, open fishways, and improve water quality and the overall health of the estuary, combined with a decrease in fishing interception out in the ocean, we could finally see a rebuilding trend after 30 years of depletion.”
There has been improvement in Connecticut rivers in recent years, likely correlated to the low fishing effort of the herring trawl fleet due to a steep reduction in Atlantic herring. According to Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the 2025 fish run season resulted in the highest final count of blueback herring since 1997, and record returns were registered at three long-term alewife monitoring locations. The combined runs in Connecticut totaled 414,000 river herring this year, a 39% increase from 2024.
“If robust, science-backed time/area closures are enacted and biologically based bycatch caps determined by what the populations can handle rather than past trawl bycatch, we expect to see that continue,” said Lucey.