The Urban Shad Watch 2006

Shad! Shad! Shad! They came early this year and in greater numbers.

The Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center celebrated the shad, took a census of its population, studied its role in the history of Philadelphia and enjoyed shad snacks during four days in April.

Each spring the shad come home to the Schuylkill to spawn. Their return is a critical indicator of the cleanliness of one of the city’s two major sources of drinking water.

Fish Census

The numbers of shad and the varieties of fish of all species are clear proof that our waterways are recovering from years of neglect and pollution. Aquatic biologist Joe Perillo held up a large fish to the applause of some 100 people watching from the riverbank during the fish census.

During the fish census PWD biologists found many species, including, among others:

  • American shad
  • hickory shad
  • gizzard shad
  • striped bass
  • hybrid striped bass
  • quillback
  • channel catfish
  • common carp
  • smallmouth bass
  • white sucker

Preliminary counts found more smallmouth bass and walleye in one month of 2006 than all three months of 2005.  There were more American shad counted in 2006 so far than at this same point last year.  River herring have also increased in abundance.

To see these and other species swimming up the Schuylkill in real time, log on to the feed from the underwater fish cam, located in the fish ladder across from the Water Works.
Native American Traditions

Heart to Hearth Cookery shared folklore as they perform Native American techniques for weaving fishing nets and drying shad. In earlier times Lenape came to this stretch of river to fish. With fibers of native plants, they wove their nets by hand, using stones to hold them down against the currents of the river.

Many nets were 100 feet or more in length. Once they hauled in the catch, women would cut the shad into small strips and dried them over open fires. Shad was a main portion of their diet and still is considered a delicacy.
Tips for cooking fish from local waters

Anne Faulds, associate director of the Delaware Estuary for Pennsylvania Sea Grant, shared tips on preparing shad and other fish caught in the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers with Ed Grusheski, PWD’s General Manger for Public Affairs. If you do catch and eat fish in our local waters, you’ll want to download a copy of Fish Smart/Eat Smart, a guide to eating fish caught in the Philadelphia area.
The Shad Dynasty of Fishtown and Gloucester

Shad was king in pre-industrial Philadelphia. Family fishing dynasties shaped society on both sides of the Delaware in the communities of Fishtown and Gloucester. In the 19th century shad harvests reached 16 million pounds a year. Anything not eaten or sold was salted and smoked for later consumption. The Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center joined Rich Remer and Torben Jenk from the Oliver Evans Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology to tell the fascinating story of Fishtown in an evening program at the FWWIC.

After 1916 the harvest fell dramatically. Since 1966, 2.5 million juvenile shad have been stocked in the Schuykill River. Now adults, they are returning from the Atlantic to spawn at their points of birth. You can see them swimming upstream in real time via the Fish Cam inside the Interpretive Center.

The goal is to have 300,000 to 850,000 shad returning up the Schuylkill every year.

This shad is a handsome fish, with a metallic blue-green back that lightens to silver along the sides and has a black spot at the shoulder, with several smaller spots trailing behind. The American shad can reach a length of 30 inches.

For centuries, settlers along our Delaware and Schuylkill rivers have welcomed this bountiful feast. In 1685 William Penn wrote: "Shads are excellent fish and of the Bigness of our Carp: They are so plentiful, that Captain Smyth's Overseer at the Skulkil, drew 600 and odd at one Draught; 300 is no wonder; 100 familiarly. They are excellent Pickled or Smokt'd, as well as boyld fresh; they are caught by nets only."

In the 1760s, George Washington harvested shad from the Potomac River adjacent to Mount Vernon, but after the bitter famine-stricken winter of 1777-1778, "it was the spring shad run in the Schuylkill that saved George Washington's army from starvation at Valley Forge. Soldiers thronged the river bank...the cavalry was ordered into the river bed....Thousands of the tasty, rich shad were netted at each haul. The lavish fish feast was a dramatic close to a long period of privation."

Shad Watch '06: children of all ages learned a bit of fish lore as they helped paint this 10-foot long mural created by the FWWIC's talented educators.
Others claimed our rivers were so full of shad that one could walk across upon their squirming, jostling backs. Well-known American ornithologist, Alexander Wilson, would dub the white shad Alosa sapidissima, or "most delicious shad."

The Lenape called the shad "porcupine-fish-turned-inside-out." And Europeans soon learned why. To wit, an old fisherman's poem:

When the Lord made shad
The Devil was mad
For it seemed such a feast of delight
So to poison the scheme
He jumped in the stream
And stuck in the bones out of spite.

Today enthusiastic shad anglers along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers are calling again, "They're in the river."