American Shad Working Group
Conference Call
September 12, 2013
Attendees: Casey Seelig (Dominion), Bob Graham (Dominion), Fritz Rhode (NMFS), John Ellis (USFWS),
Joe Hightower (NCSU), Kirk Rundle (NCWRC), Bennett Wynne (NCWRC), Dan Michaelson (VDGIF), Scott
Smith (VDGIF)
(Started call @ 10:00 )
1) Casey provided a brief update on the American Shad tagging study.
VR2 Receivers were deployed March 3rd through August 7th. Casey spoke with Jeremy McCargo
(NCWRC) and decided to leave four of six receivers in the river. The two receivers located in the
bypass were removed and will be handed off to NCWRC at the ASWG meeting. Julie provided
data from the downstream array through June 16th. Eleven of 30 tags were detected in the
receiver array located within the study reach. Twenty-five of the tags were detected on the
receivers (maintained by NCSU, NCDMF, etc) located downstream of the study reach. Only one
of the 30 tags was undetected by any receiver. Casey noted that he has only been able to skim
the data but has seen some interesting patterns. One male fish (tag #8831) moved up into the
study reach 4/10. Once in the study reach it made movements into both the bypass and tailrace
before falling back to the area around the power lines. This fish then out migrated on May 12th.
Another male fish (tag# 8836) moved into the study area on May 9th and remained in the vicinity
of the power lines until appearing to out-migrate on June 15th. Casey said he would have more
results to review at the ASWG meeting.
2) Casey said that we need to make decision on delaying Trap and Transport Phase 1 (T&T) for
2014 for our October 31st American Shad submittal to the FERC. He noted that we had a similar
call last year and reached consensus on delaying T&T for 2013. The reasoning for this was a
relatively low population of American Shad even in light of hydroacoustic estimates, Julie Harris’
model results which indicated no benefit to the population would result from moving fish into
the impoundments, Julie’s tracking work within the reservoirs which indicated that adults
generally did not cue on flow and migrate, and we aren’t seeing young of the year (from fry
stockings) out migrating from the reservoirs. Casey pointed out that the only thing that has
changed this year is Joe Hightower’s reanalysis of hydroacoustic population estimates (20042011).
Joe gave a quick summary of his reanalysis of the hydroacoustic data and report. He noted that
the original hydroacoustic estimates were generated from four independent masters’ theses.
Joe said they all used slightly different methodologies. What he did was reexamine their work in
a more consistent manner. He discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using DIDSON
and split-beam sonar to develop run size estimates. He noted that the split-beam estimates
were consistently half of the estimates derived using DIDSON. The split-beam estimates were
therefore doubled. He then used NCSU electrofishing and gillnet data to parse out the species
composition. He also used DMF gillnet data from Albemarle Sound. Joe came up with an
American Shad population estimate that averaged about 30k fish per year.
Bob asked Joe if he felt this changed anything in terms of what we decided last year about
delaying T&T. Joe said that while these numbers are larger than the estimates that came from
the masters‘ theses, they do not show much sign of an increase, and were considerably variable
year to year. It was his opinion that this doesn’t change continuing to delay T&T. It was also
noted that these estimates are similar to the estimates being derived from Julie’s model using
out migrating juveniles.
Fritz said that in light of what was pointed out, along with the fact that we are not seeing
juveniles out migrate from the reservoir stockings, he sees no advantage in moving forward with
T&T at this time.
John said that USFWS is still ok with delaying T&T. He asked if there was any concern with
addressing the issues in the reservoir. He asked if there was any way we can look into if there
are issues with the intakes at Kerr Dam or flows through the reservoirs.
Joe indicated a surface spill from the reservoirs could possibly help out migration.
Fritz asked about the American Shad fry stocking this year. He mentioned we had discussed
stocking in Gaston.
Kirk told us that NCWRC stocked 839,593 fry in Lake Gaston this year. Bennett said that stocking
in Lake Gaston is to continue into 2014 or 2015, so we will have an opportunity to see how
removing Kerr Dam as an obstacle may affect reservoir-stocked fish recruitment. Bennett also
mentioned that Jeremy McCargo started the juvenile American Shad sampling on the Roanoke
last week. He has collected 13 so far.
Bob mentioned an exercise that Dominion did on the rate of turnover in the reservoirs and a
comparison to the multiple dam situation on the Susquehanna River. Bob will need to find those
numbers again, but the result indicated that residence time in the Kerr/Gaston/Roanoke Rapids
impoundment system was much greater than that in the Susquehanna.
Bob said he and Casey would send out notes from this call for everyone to review. These notes
will serve as a record of consultation for continued delay of American Shad Trap and Transport
Phase 1 in 2014, and would be submitted to FERC with the October 31st American Shad
submittal.
3) Casey indicated he would like to schedule an ASWG meeting for late November or the first week
of December to discuss the items below. Fritz also asked that we discuss the larger percentage
of juveniles from stocked fry vs. wild spawn as an agenda item. Everyone agreed that we should
discuss this at the meeting. Casey said that he would send out a Doodle poll to schedule the
meeting when he sends out the meeting minutes for review.
ASWG agenda items:
a. Review tagging study results
b. Review NCWRC juvenile collections and development of 2013 population estimate Joe
agreed to recap and discuss the hydroacoustic work
c. Decide what we want to do for a population estimate for 2014
d. Discuss high contribution of stocked juveniles compared to Wild
(Ended call 10:45)