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| NAS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species |
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Common Name: alewife
Taxonomy: available through 
Identification: Whitehead (1985); Page and Burr (1991); Etnier and Starnes (1993); Jenkins and Burkhead (1994). The Alewife is a small herring with a dark dorsal side, bluish to greenish, and light sides with horizontal darker stripes.
Size: to 38 cm, but inland populations usually less than 25 cm
Native Range:
Atlantic Coast from Red Bay, Labrador, to South Carolina; many landlocked populations (Page and Burr 1991).
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Hawaii |
Caribbean |
Interactive maps: Continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, Caribbean
Nonindigenous Occurrences: Alewife were introduced into Colorado (Minckley 1973); Georgia (Dahlberg and Scott 1971a); Lake Michigan, Illinois (Miller 1957; Smith 1979; Phillips et al. 1982; Emery 1985); Lake Michigan (Miller 1957; Phillips et al. 1982; Emery 1985), Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (Tilmant 1999), Bass Lake (IN DNR) Indiana; Kentucky (Burr and Page 1986; Burr and Warren 1986); Maine (Smith 1985); Massachusetts (Hartel 1992); the Great Lakes (Miller 1957; Eddy and Underhill 1974; Phillips et al. 1982; Emery 1985; Smith 1985), Isle Royale National Park, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (Tilmant 1999) and Lake St. Clair (Cudmore-Vokey and Crossman 2000) Michigan ; Lake Superior, Minnesota (Miller 1957; Eddy and Underhill 1974; Phillips et al. 1982; Emery 1985); Nebraska (Morris et al. 1974; Bouc 1987); New Hampshire (Smith 1985); Adirondack lakes (Smith 1985), Otsego Lake in 1988 (T. Sinnott, personal communication), Lake Erie (Miller 1957; Eddy and Underhill 1974; Emery 1985; Smith 1985), lakes in the headwaters of Black River, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and Saratoga Lake (Smith 1970), Otisco Lake (Kelly 2001), and possibly Lake Ontario (Smith 1970; Smith 1985), New York; Lake Erie and Conneaut, Ohio (Miller 1957; Emery 1985); Lake Erie (Miller 1957; Eddy and Underhill 1974; Emery 1985), Youghiogheny River (Hendricks et al. 1979), and Colyer Lake in Centre County (Denoncourt et al. 1975a), Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (Tilmant 1999), Pennsylvania; Lake Moultrie, Lake Marion, Congaree River, and Wateree River, South Carolina (Rohde et al. 2009); Dale Hollow and Watauga Reservoirs, Tennessee (Etnier and Starnes 1993; W. Pollock, personal communication); Lake St. Catherine, Vermont (Hauser 1998); several reservoirs in Virginia (Hocutt et al. 1986; Jenkins and Burkhead 1994); Bluestone Reservoir, New drainage, West Virginia (Hocutt et al. 1986; Stauffer et al. 1995; Jenkins and Burkhead 1994); and lakes Michigan and Superior, Kangaroo Lake, Pigeon River, Pigeon Lake, East Twin River, Sheboygan River, Green Bay, St. Louis River estuary, Sauk Creek, and Milwaukee River, Wisconsin (Miller 1957; Phillips et al. 1982; Becker 1983; Emery 1985; Czypinski et al. 2001).
Collected from Lake Superior at Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada (USGS Lake Superior Biological Station).
Means of Introduction: There is apparently disagreement concerning the native status of alewife in Lake Ontario. Miller (1957) and Smith (1970) point out the first record from Lake Ontario was in 1873. Smith (1970) is of the opinion that it was introduced into the lake. Although Smith (1970) brings up the possibility that alewife were introduced into Lake Ontario with American shad stockings in the 1880s, he discounts this possibility in favor of the hypothesis that they reached the lake via the Erie Canal from the Hudson River. He contends that alewife were only able to invade the lake after the decline of predators such as lake trout and Atlantic salmon in the 1860s. Other authors believe, this species was probably native to Lake Ontario (Lee et al. 1980 et seq.) and spread through the Great Lakes via the Welland Canal (Lee et al. 1980 et seq.). The species was first reported from Lake Erie in 1931, Lake Huron in 1933, Lake Michigan in 1949, and Lake Superior in 1954. The alewife was intentionally stocked in inland waters. The population in the New River, West Virginia, resulted from stockings in Claytor Lake, New River, Virginia (Jenkins and Burkhead 1994). The recently discovered population in Lake St. Catherine, Vermont, is likely a result of an illegal stocking (Good, personal communication). Lakes in the Adirondack Mountains and Otsego Lake, New York were illegally stocked with alewives for forage (Smith 1985; Sinnott, personal communication; D. Warner, personal communication).
Status: Established in many states and throughout the Great Lakes. Introduction to the Youghioghenay River was unsuccessful (Hendricks et al. 1979).
Impact of Introduction: It could restructure a lake's food web, leaving less food for native species (EPA 2008). Disappearance of native planktivorous salmonids, such as whitefish, in the Great Lakes has been attributed in part to the introduction of alewives, which reduced zooplankton populations (Crowder and Binkowski 1983; Todd 1986b; Page and Laird 1993). Crowder (1984) speculated that a cisco native to Lake Michigan, the bloater Coregonus hoyi, evolved fewer and shorter gill rakers, and shifted to benthic habitat and diet as a result of competition with alewifes. Smith (1970) attributed the extermination of the lake herring and decline of chub species in the Great Lakes to the alewife. Smith also talks about the various interrelated changes that took place in each of the Great Lakes as alewife abundance increased. Christie (1972), on the other hand, argues that the alewife was not responsible for these changes. The alewife is the dominant fish in Lake Michigan. It accounts for 70-90% of the fish weight (Becker 1983).
Alewives are a very important species in the history of biological invasions in the Great Lakes. Periodic large-scale die-offs littered the beaches of the Great Lakes with rotting fish in the 1960's. Such die-offs can pose both a nuisance and a health hazard (Becker 1983). Prompted by calls for alewife management, pacific salmonids were introduced to both control alewife populations and utilize alewives as a food source for sport fisheries.
Remarks: Although there is a report of two small alewives taken from the Colorado River, Texas (Bean 1882), we believe this record is in error. Bean (1882) reported that the specimens were sent to Professor Baird at the National Museum. However, a query of the museum's holdings did not return these specimens. We believe the fish are more likely either misidentified A. chrysochloris or A. sapidissima. Alosa sapidissima were stocked in the Colorado River in 1874 (Bean 1882).
Voucher specimens: Michigan (UMMZ 157215, 160969, 167872, 171308, 170945), Wisconsin (UMMZ 162861, 167945).
Bean, T. H. 1882. Movements of young alewives (Pomolobus sp.) in Colorado River, Texas. Pp. 69-70 in S. F. Baird, editor. Report of the Commissioner of Fiishes and Fisheries for 1881. Volume I. U.S. Commision of Fish and Fisheries, Washington, D.C.
Bouc, K. 1987. The fish book. Nebraskaland Magazine 65(1):1-130.
Burr, B. M., and L. M. Page. 1986. Zoogeography of fishes of the lower Ohio-upper Mississippi basin. Pages 287-324 in C. H. Hocutt, and E. O. Wiley, editors. The Zoogeography of North American Freshwater Fishes. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.
Burr, B. M., and M. L. Warren, Jr. 1986. A distributional atlas of Kentucky fishes. Kentucky Nature Preserves Commission Scientific and Technical Series 4. 398 pp.
Christie, W. J. 1972. Lake Ontario: effects of exploitation, introductions, and eutrophication on the salmonid community. Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada 29:913-929.
Crowder, L. B. 1984. Character displacement and habitat shift in a native cisco in southeastern Lake Michigan: Evidence for competition? Copeia 1984(4):878-883.
Crowder, L. B., and F. P. Binkowski. 1983. Foraging behaviors and the interactions of alewife, Alosa pseudoharengus, and bloater, Coregonus hoyi. Environmental Biology of Fishes 8: 105-113.
Cudmore-Vokey, B. and E.J. Crossman. 2000. Checklists of the fish fauna of the Laurentian Great Lakes and their connecting channels. Can. MS Rpt. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 2500: v + 39p.
Czypinski, G. D., A. K. Bowen, M. T. Weimer, A. Dextrase. 2001. Surveillance for ruffe in the Great Lakes, 2001. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ashland, WI.
Dahlberg, M. D., and D. C. Scott. 1971a. The freshwater fishes of Georgia. Bulletin of the Georgia Academy of Science 29:1-64.
Denoncourt, R. F., T. B. Robbins, and R. Hesser. 1975a. Recent introductions and reintroductions to the Pennsylvania fish fauna of the Susquehanna River drainage above Conowingo Dam. Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Academy of Science 49:57-58
Eddy, S., and J. C. Underhill. 1974. Northern fishes, with special reference to the Upper Mississippi Valley, 3rd edition. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.
Emery, L. 1985. Review of fish introduced into the Great Lakes, 1819-1974. Great Lakes Fishery Commission Technical Report, volume 45. 31 pp.
Etnier, D. A., and W. C. Starnes. 1993. The fishes of Tennessee. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN.
Good, S. - Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, Pittsford. 1998.
Hartel, K. E. 1992. Non-native fishes known from Massachusetts freshwaters. Occasional Reports of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Fish Department, Cambridge, MA. 2. September. pp. 1-9.
Hauser, M. 1998. Champlain Canal fish barrier study. Aquatic Nuisance Species Digest 2(3):26-27.
Hendricks, M. L., J. R. Stauffer, Jr., C. H. Hocutt, and C. R. Gilbert. 1979. A preliminary checklist of the fishes of the Youghiogheny River. Chicago Academy of Sciences, Natural History Miscellanea 203:1-15.
Hocutt, C. H., R. E. Jenkins, and J.R. Stauffer, Jr. 1986. Zoogeography of the fishes of the central Appalachians and central Atlantic Coastal Plain. Pages 161-212 in C. H. Hocutt, and E. O. Wiley, editors. The Zoogeography of North American Freshwater Fishes. John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.
Jenkins, R. E., and N. M. Burkhead. 1994. Freshwater fishes of Virginia. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD.
Lee, D. S., C. R. Gilbert, C. H. Hocutt, R. E. Jenkins, D. E. McAllister, and J. R. Stauffer, Jr. 1980 et seq. Atlas of North American freshwater fishes. North Carolina State Museum of Natural History, Raleigh, NC. (Cited as a work rather than as individual accounts in the interest of space).
Miller, R. R. 1957. Origin and dispersal of the alewife, Alosa pseudoharengus, and the gizzard shad, Dorosoma cepedianum, in the Great Lakes. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 86:97-111.
Minckley, W. L. 1973. Fishes of Arizona. Arizona Fish and Game Department. Sims Printing Company, Inc., Phoenix, AZ.
Morris, J., L. Morris, and L. Witt. 1974. The fishes of Nebraska. Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Lincoln, NE. 98 pp.
Page, L. M., and B. M. Burr. 1991. A field guide to freshwater fishes of North America north of Mexico. The Peterson Field Guide Series, volume 42. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA.
Page, L. M., and C. A. Laird. 1993. The identification of the nonnative fishes inhabiting Illinois waters. Report prepared by Center for Biodiversity, Illinois Natural History Survey, Champaign, for Illinois Department of Conservation, Springfield. Center for Biodiversity Technical Report 1993(4). 39 pp.
Phillips, G. L., W. D. Schmid, J. C. Underhill. 1982. Fishes of the Minnesota region. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.
Pollock, W. - Tennessee Wildlife resources Agency, Nashville, Tennessee. Response to USGS/BRD-G non-indigenous questionaire. 1992.
Rohde, F. C, R. G. Arndt, J. W. Foltz, and J. M. Quattro. 2009. Freshwater Fishes of South Carolina. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC. 430 pp.
Sinnott, T. - New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany, NY.
Smith, S. H. 1970. Species interactions of the alewife in the Great Lakes. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 99(4):754-765.
Smith, P. W. 1979. The fishes of Illinois. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL.
Smith, C. L. 1985. The inland fishes of New York state. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany, NY. 522 pp.
Tilmant, J.T. 1999. Management of nonindigenous aquatic fish in the U.S. National Park System. National Park Service. 50 pp.
Todd, T. N. 1986b. Artificial propagation of coregonines in the management of the Laurentian Great Lakes. Arch. Hydrobiol. Beih./Ergebn. Limnol. 22:31-50.
Warner, D. - Cornell University.
Whitehead, J. P. 1985. FAO Species Catalogue. Vol. 7. Clupeoid Fishes of the World (Suborder Clupeoidei). An annotated and illustrated catalogue of the herrings, sardines, pilchards, sprats, anchovies and wolf-herrings. Part 1 - Chirocentridae, Clupeidae and Pristigasteridae. FAO Fisheries Synopsis (125) Vol. 7, Pt. 1:303 pp.
Other Resources:
FishBase species summary for Alosa pseudoharengus
Alternative Strategies for the management of non-indigenous alewives in Lake St. Catherine, Vermont (pdf)
Map of locations in Illinois ILNHS
Alosa spp. (ANS Clearinghouse Bibliography)
Global Invasive Species Database Factsheet
Author: Pam Fuller, Erynn Maynard, and David Raikow
Contributing Agencies: 
NOAA - GLERL
Revision Date: 9/24/2009 Citation for this information:
Pam Fuller, Erynn Maynard, and David Raikow. 2009. Alosa pseudoharengus. USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database, Gainesville, FL.
<http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?speciesID=490> Revision Date: 9/24/2009
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