NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC • August 14, 2020
There are now 60 to 100 alewife runs throughout Maine and the numbers keep going up as more dams are removed, enabling the return of not only alewives but also other migratory fish: salmon, shad, sturgeon, blueback herring, striped bass, eels. He rattles off some statistics: The Kennebec alewife run, no longer stoppered by the Edwards Dam, is estimated at about five million. The Penobscot, reopened by the taking down of Great Works and Veazie Dams in 2012 and 2013 respectively, now has two to three million alewives swimming upriver.