Photo of dead alewife on Lake Erie’s shoreline. Photo taken by Christian Mitchell
From the NYS DEC,
Anglers and lake shore residents along Lake Erie might be seeing an unusually high number of dead fish this spring to due the excessive ice cover this past winter. Recent reports and photos have shown large numbers of small (3 inches) alewife along the beaches from Evans to Hamburg.
Alewife are a non-native fish species and are intolerant of water temperatures near freezing, making them susceptible to die-offs during years with heavy and prolonged ice cover. Warm winters with little ice has allowed their populations to increase in Lake Erie in recent years, however it is expected that many of these fish will not have survived this winter and will begin to wash up on the beaches as the ice recedes on the lake.
Exploring the Western New York Wilds by Bob Confer predicted and explained more about “Winterkill” last month, in case you missed it:
