{"id":9384,"date":"2022-05-04T20:24:55","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T20:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/?page_id=9384"},"modified":"2025-11-13T17:09:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T22:09:38","slug":"river-herring-assessment-survey","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/fishing\/marine\/river-herring-assessment-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"River Herring Assessment Survey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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The River Herring Assessment Survey monitors and surveys adult and juvenile populations of alewife and blueback herring (river herring, collectively) in the Great Egg Harbor and Maurice Rivers.\u00a0These two species populations, which are jointly and cooperatively managed by New Jersey and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), have been assessed as depleted on a coastwide basis and surveys like this help to lay the groundwork for species recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The River Herring Assessment Survey was initiated in 2013 in response to the ASMFC\u2019s 2012 River Herring Benchmark Stock Assessment that found both species of river herring to be depleted on a coastwide basis but there was a lack of the quality and quantity of data necessary to make an assessment specific to New Jersey.\u00a0In order to fill these data gaps and address research priorities that came out of the stock assessment, Bureau of Marine Fisheries (BMF) staff developed an assessment program to understand spawning adult and young of year population abundance within two New Jersey Rivers.\u00a0The Maurice River, and later in 2015 the Great Egg Harbor River, were chosen as representative examples of Delaware Basin and Atlantic Coastal rivers with known populations of river herring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two components of the survey were developed in order to assess two important life history stages of river herring.\u00a0River herring are an anadromous fish, meaning they are spawned (born) in freshwater rivers and streams and migrate out to the ocean where they grow to be mature adults. These adults return to the same river or stream they were born in to spawn future generations. The first component of the survey uses anchored gillnets which intercept these migrating adult river herring on their way up from the ocean to their historic spawning grounds.\u00a0BMF staff deploy these gillnets perpendicular to shoreline from the bow of a small vessel using bright orange buoys to mark their location.\u00a0The nets are left to soak for an hour and a half before they are retrieved and the catch is sorted on board the vessel. BMF staff separate and count all species caught and collect biological data from any target species caught including alewife, bluebacks, and striped bass.\u00a0This data includes number of fish caught, fork and total length, sex, spawning maturity stage, and age data.\u00a0This component of the survey takes place in the spring from March through May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second component of the survey targets the young of year river herring that were spawned earlier in the spring by the migrating adults.\u00a0 From July through the end of October BMF staff deploy a 100 foot seine net at seven different locations on each river.\u00a0 The seine net is deployed from the bow of a small vessel and hauled on shore where BMF staff sort the entire catch down to the species level and a subset of the total target species caught is measured.\u00a0 Beyond blue back and alewife herring, target species for the seine net portion of the survey include striped bass, winter flounder, summer flounder, bluefish, blue crabs, white perch, Atlantic silverside, and many more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From the data collected in each component of the survey an index of abundance is generated based on the number of fish caught per gillnet set for the adult river herring and per seine net haul for the young of year river herring.\u00a0 Data collected through fisheries surveys, such as this one, goes into the development of Fishery Management Plans to ensure the sustainable recreational and commercial harvest of species for years to come.\u00a0 For more information on river herring management check out the ASMFC\u2019s website at, http:\/\/www.asmfc.org\/species\/shad-river-herring<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are charts detailing the average catch per haul for alewife and blueback herring, both adult and young of the year, from the Great Egg Harbor and Maurice Rivers through 2024:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Adult alewife and blueback average catch per gill net haul (geometric mean) for the Maurice
River. 2013-2024. *Gill netting not conducted in 2020 and 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Adult alewife average catch per gill net haul (geometric mean) for the Great Egg Harbor River.
2015-2024. *Gill netting not conducted in 2020 and 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Young of year alewife and blueback average catch per seine net haul (geometric mean) for the
Maurice River. 2013-2024. *Seining not conducted in 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Young of year alewife and blueback herring average catch per seine net haul (geometric mean)
for the Great Egg Harbor River. 2015-2024. *Seining not conducted in 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Project Lead Contact Information<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian Neilan, Fisheries Biologist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian.Neilan@deptest.nj.gov<\/p>\n\n\n\n

609-748-2020<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The River Herring Assessment Survey monitors and surveys adult and juvenile populations of alewife and blueback herring (river herring, collectively) in the Great Egg Harbor and Maurice Rivers.\u00a0These two species populations, which are jointly and cooperatively managed by New Jersey and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), have been assessed as depleted on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"parent":42,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9384","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9384"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62992,"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9384\/revisions\/62992"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deptest.nj.gov\/njfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}