The greatest wildlife spectacle that Washington, DC, has to offer is happening right now--stand on a bridge over the lower part of Rock Creek and you’ll see thousands of shad migrating upstream. The fish draw quite a crowd: all those after-work anglers on the Potomac aim to land one of the huge striped bass that follow the shad from the sea. There’s also a lot of overfed cormorants weighing down the boughs of trees on the Potomac, and last weekend, Donald Rumsfeld was spotted in Georgetown feasting on shad and roe at Billy Martins ($18.95 in lemon white wine sauce).

Yes, shad is good eating, which along with habitat loss, are the main reasons why shad catches on the eastern seaboard of the United Stated have plummeted from a peak of 23,000 tons in 1896 to just a few hundred tons today. Given the number of fish on the Potomac right now, I can only imagine what the shad run used to look like, but historic photos of early settlers alongside huge piles of these clupeids give an anecdotal glimpse into the past.

The sad tale of the disappearing shad is just one of many similar fishy stories unfolding around the world. This month’s National Geographic explores the global fish crisis in depth. The poignant cover shows a young swordfish (bycatch) entangled in a tuna net and the article is a sobering read about the tragedy of the world’s fishery commons. A recent WWF Top 10 Rivers at Risk report correctly identifies the main threats to the health of rivers, namely: dams and infrastructure, excessive water extraction, climate change, invasive species, over-fishing and pollution.

I’m glad that someone is finally paying attention. Anyone who loves fish can’t help but be alarmed at what’s happening. When I first moved to America, I was amazed to find out that its has some 800 freshwater species representing 10% of the world’s freshwater fishes, including some very ancient and peculiar giants like paddlefish, gars and sturgeon. What I didn’t know at the time was that 37% of the freshwater fishes in the United States are threatened or at risk of extinction – nearly twice the global average. Few people realize that extinction rates in freshwater are five times higher than for land animals.

Habitat alteration has been identified as the leading factor associated with the extinction of America’s freshwater fishes. Every year, we lose some 58,000 acres of wetlands, mostly to housing developments, while a whopping 14% of America’s coastal watersheds are covered in concrete from urban sprawl. Dams are a huge problem for migratory species like shad. While dam building is no longer fashionable in the United States, there are still about 75,000 large dams and a quarter of a million small dams that remain, leaving a fragmented river system in America. Dams still alter downstream flows, reduce sediment supply to estuaries, and eliminate seasonal flooding cycles that signal fish to start breeding. 

In 2004, a group of fisheries biologists realized that the United States had gone too far down the slippery slope of poor aquatic resource stewardship and that only a coordinated effort from all stakeholders would save the country’s fish. They started the National Fish Habitat Initiative, which has gathered huge momentum and is now a collaborative group of 15 federal agencies, 37 state agencies, 35 industry partners and 149 NGOs who are all working together to protect, restore and enhance the nations fish habitats. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation spearheads the fundraising effort for this initiative under its More Fish campaign.

The cynics say we’ve been down this road before and they’re right. This is not the first major aquatic conservation effort in the US. So far, different groups spend a collective $1 billion per year on aquatic habitat restoration efforts in the US, and yet there is little coordination of these efforts and no way to cumulatively assess their impact at a national level. The National Fish Habitat Initiative is different because it is the first nation-wide effort that is actively collecting data from hundreds of collaborators around the country. That information will be analyzed to produce a “state of the nation’s fish habitat” report that can be used to evaluate collective progress and prioritize conservation actions.

I hope that the tide is beginning to turn as increased attention is focused on aquatic and marine conservation efforts. Increased awareness and financial support can help to carry membership-based conservation groups in the right direction. And that will mean that the shad that were reintroduced to the Bronx River in New York last weekend will have a brighter future.

By Brian Gratwicke, DavidMixer.com contributor