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Climbing the Shad Ladder
Officials recently dedicated a new fish ladder at the Black Rock Sanctuary in Phoenixville and also a trail with interactive stations around the river basin. The ladder, which took about a year and a half to complete, was designed to assist American shad and other species with their upstream migration during springtime spawning on the Schuylkill, said Chuck Campbell, the project manager.
In the past, the Delaware and Schuylkill were dense with spawning shad every spring. However, the polluted and oxygen depleted parts of the waterways cut off the shad’s annual migration route. The rivers have made a big comeback in the decades since the Clean Water Act, and it looks as if the shad too have returned. To help shad overcome the dams blocking their passage upstream, Philadelphia’s Fish and Boat Commission has built fish ladders, in which fish swim over a series of steps over the dam. A six-feet-per-second flowing current is fast enough to offer some natural resistance but not overpower the fish, and there’s a platform inside where the finny creatures can rest.
Campbell explains that the spawning habits of shad are very different than the familiar image of salmon jumping upstream. “American shad are lazy by comparison. They don’t jump,” he said, which explains the water flow engineered to attract fish into a channel that bypassed the dam. Cameras were also installed so the fish, which are expected to also include carp and bass, can be monitored and counted.
“These fish will have an easier time going up the Schuylkill than our residents have going down the Schuylkill,” joked State Rep. Andrew E. Dinniman (D., Chester), applauding the initiative.
Check out this great MP3 which tells the story of shad.
Written by intern on 06/23/2010 in Blog | News | Philadelphia | Politics | Random Finding
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