Swimming Against the Tide

The Urgent Need to Protect Migratory Fish in the James River

How America’s founding fish and other migratory fish species are facing an alarming decline in the James River.

Once the most culturally and economically important fish to the East Coast, American Shad have been called America’s “Founding Fish.” This species thrived in Virginia’s freshwater rivers and have been an essential species to Indigenous Peoples and generations of Virginians.

Today, however, nearly two generations have grown up without a relationship to American Shad in the James. While American Shad are still present in other Virginia Rivers, since 2021, they have become all but extinct in the James River.

[Insert photo w/quote or video of Albert Spells]

But the story doesn’t stop with shad. Other important migratory fish species, such as striped bass or “rockfish,” are facing similar declines in the James.

As we work to understand the underlying conditions that are causing these declines, the James River Association is fighting to protect the future of these migratory fish.

Protecting these fish is essential for the health of the river and the well-being of the communities that depend on it.

Migratory fish are fish that travel long distances between different bodies of water. These migrations are generally seasonal and are usually for feeding or breeding purposes. The migratory fish found in the James live in the ocean, or in saltwater for most of their lives, but return to the James to spawn.

We have seen concerning trends in migratory fish populations in the James River in recent years.

Catch Index: The number of fish caught within a set amount of time during a population monitoring trip.

Species information in other local rivers:

• Striped Bass
• Blueback Herring & Alewife – VIMS

Due to their federal endangered species designation, population data is not available for Atlantic Sturgeon.

Ecological Balance

Economic Impact

Cultural Heritage

Migratory fish species face a multitude of challenges in the James River today.

The James River has improved in overall water quality through the past few decades. Virginia has invested significantly in practices to reduce farm and urban polluted runoff, and to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities. These restoration actions are reducing the nutrient and sediment pollution loads to the James River, but we still have work ahead to meet Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay Cleanup goals that aim to restore the Bay and its tributaries by 2025. In particular, improvements to water clarity conditions in the James River are needed. 

Underwater grass abundance, or rather the lack of underwater grasses, is one notable indication of poor water clarity in the James River. Thousands of acres of underwater grass beds once blanketed the shallows of the James River estuary, but these grasses die out when the river becomes too turbid for light to penetrate through the water. Without light, plants are unable to photosynthesize. Without underwater grass beds, we lose important habitat and ecosystems that support shad and other aquatic life. Unfortunately, underwater grass beds are at only 46% of restoration goals in the tidal James River, and are particularly sparse along the mainstem James. Underwater grass beds are critical nursery areas for young shad, providing “rest stops” as they move downstream in the summer and fall seeking refuge from predators. 

Encouragingly, American shad abundance has improved over the last decade in the Potomac and Rappahannock estuaries – places that have also seen a resurgence of underwater grass beds. With a continued focus on reducing sediment pollution in the James River, we can improve water clarity conditions too, paving the way for underwater grasses and shad to return.

Water intakes can impact all life stages of fish (eggs, larvae, adults) along with any shellfish or invertebrates that lack the ability to swim away from current generated by water intakes. Aquatic life is directly impacted in two distinct ways:

• Impingement = aquatic organisms are pinned against mesh screens due to water intake velocities being too high
• Entrainment = aquatic organisms move through water intake systems due to mesh screen sizes that are too large

Virginia has developed standards for industrial water intakes that recommend minimum criteria to avoid impacts to aquatic life from impingement or entrainment. These include mesh screens appropriately sized to prevent organisms from entering a water intake, and reduced water intake velocity to prevent animals from getting pinned and killed against screens. But these standards primarily come into play when new water intakes are proposed, or when old facilities are required to renew regulatory permits. Many industries that use river water for power generation or manufacturing purposes predate these best practices and do not currently meet Virginia’s standards to minimize impacts on aquatic life.

American shad are important prey for many fish species. Fortunately, shad are prolific spawners and a female can lay up to 600,000 eggs. Producing more offspring than are needed to maintain a sustainable population is a common evolutionary strategy among forage fish species like shad. In other words, shad deal with natural predation by producing a lot of young. But when non-native predator species enter the equation, things can get thrown out of balance.

Blue catfish and flathead catfish were first introduced to the James River in the 1970s as sportfish, which today has developed into a trophy fishery attracting many anglers to the region. These non-native catfish are undoubtedly preying on American shad and other native fish, but this is a factor influencing American shad abundance that is hard to quantify. Predation by non-native catfish is simply another hurdle for shad on their gauntlet run through the James River. One study by researchers at Virginia Tech explored diet preferences of these catfish and pointed out that flatheads are more carnivorous feeders (more likely to prey on species in the herring family), while blue catfish tend to be more generalists in their diet. Both will eat shad fry or adults, given the chance, and both are considered invasive species by federal and state agencies in the Bay watershed.

Virginia has a moratorium in place for shad harvest in waters of the Commonwealth, but that jurisdiction doesn’t extend into the ocean. Bycatch in the commercial fishing industry along the Atlantic coast is another suspected area where we’re losing shad. This likely contributes to fewer shad returning to spawn in rivers of the Bay watershed, and with an already much reduced population, every factor like this puts additional strain on the Founding Fish.

In Virginia the climate is trending warmer and wetter. Climate change is a game changer for ecosystems and it threatens to undermine progress we’ve made to restore the James River. It also creates new hurdles for American shad that we’re just beginning to understand. Studies have indicated that warming temperatures can affect shad growth and mortality rates, shifts in spawning periods, shortened spawning seasons, or shifts in the size of American shad at maturity.