What do fish have to do with farms? More than you might think!

Each spring as the snow turns to rain and the land starts to warm up, heralding the arrival of snowdrops, crocuses, and spring peepers, my mind starts to turn to gardening… and fish! In my role as the Aquatic Ecologist at the Connecticut River Conservancy I think about fish a lot, but in spring that kicks into high gear as our native anadromous fish species begin heading upstream to spawn, and I prepare to head out and help collect data about where they are and how many are there. Alewives lead the charge, moving from Long Island Sound into the river beginning in March or April and are soon followed by blueback herring, shad, sturgeon, stripers, and sea lamprey. Catadromous American eel juveniles are also coming upstream, but to feed rather than to breed. Not all of those migratory fish species travel as far upstream as New Hampshire. Here in Cheshire County, we no longer see Atlantic salmon in the river as they were sadly extirpated by overfishing, habitat degradation, and dams restricting spawning site access. But we typically do see American eel, sea lamprey, and American shad in the mainstem and our local tributaries like the Ashuelot and Cold rivers. These species play a unique and important role in shaping and nourishing the river ecosystems, from reorganizing the riverbed substrate while building nests (see photo of sea lamprey), to being important components of both aquatic and terrestrial food webs, to acting as a conduit for marine derived nutrients into these ecosystems, thereby allowing the whole community to thrive and be more resilient than it would without the presence of these fish.

Image Credit: Connecticut River Conservancy. Sea lamprey use their suction mouths to move rocks while building a nest. In the process they shape habitat and shelter for other organisms.

So, what’s the connection to farming in Cheshire County? That very concept of nourishing our ecosystems leading to higher productivity, biodiversity, and resilience applies on land too. As you may know, the fertile floodplain soils that support much our farming community exist because of how water shaped our landscape. Glacier formation and retreat ground up the land and spread the ground up rocks around. When glacial Lake Hitchcock drained about 13,000 years ago, it left behind layers of sediment deposited over its existence, from varves of clay that enabled Keene’s brick factories, to terraced sand and gravel banks supporting today’s commercial pits and filtering our groundwater. Seasonal flooding as the lake retreated into the Connecticut River we are familiar with deposited nutrient rich lake-bottom soils, which form the basis of the prime farmland in our river valleys. And in more recent times, the river continues to enrich the farmland. The spring freshet brings water downstream and where it is able to, the river overflows the banks and continues the cycle of sediment and nutrient deposition on the floodplains. As the spring high waters carry their load downstream, the fish bring their nutrients upstream as well.

American shad arrival coincides with the blooming of the shadbush (see photo of shad and shadbush blossoms). Shad were once so plentiful in the Connecticut River that it seemed we could never run out. A 1921 article in the Brattleboro Daily Reformer refers to an historical anecdote indicating that “about the year 1803 shad at times were so abundant in West River at its mouth that it looked as though one could walk across the river on them.” Shad fed people directly, including both indigenous Native Americans as well as early colonists to our area. But they fed people indirectly as well, being so abundant that they were easily caught and utilized as fertilizer on crop fields in the lower river even as their eggs, young, and carcasses (though not all shad die after spawning) fed the river system.

Image 1 Credit: James Garner (permission granted). Shad in the Connecticut River, one with a lamprey hitchhiker! Image 2 Credit: Kate Buckman. Trees in the Amelanchier genus, like the shadbush, bloom in early spring before leaf out.

Sadly, that abundance did not last. Overfishing, habitat alteration, pollution, and especially, the construction of dams on the Connecticut River all detrimentally affected the spawning runs and survival of shad and other migratory fish species. As early as 1867 New Hampshire passed a law prohibiting the catching or killing of shad and salmon in the Merrimack and Connecticut Rivers (see detail from the newspaper) and efforts to stock shad throughout the river occurred throughout the mid to late 1800s, which were largely thwarted by the construction of new or higher dams. In more recent years, shad (and other migratory fish) have benefited from management efforts directly aimed at increasing population numbers, including improving or building fish passage facilities, removing barriers that are no longer serving a function, preventing overfishing, improving water quality, and more. Yet other factors, particularly climate change, will impact migratory fish populations in ways that we cannot control. Another familiar point of connection with farms!

Detail from the Aug 2, 1867 edition of the NH Statesman.

In 2025, a total of 324,172 shad passed upstream through the fishway at the dam in Holyoke, MA, the first barrier on the mainstem. That’s well under the fish population goals set in a watershed-wide recovery plan, but a dramatic improvement from the 5,900 shad counted in 1955. I, for one, am grateful for every fish swimming upstream against the current to join in the spring emergence of new life and growth. They feed our waters, which feed our soils, which feed us humans. I am also grateful to support an organization like CCCD that recognizes these vital connections between water and land, wildlife and people, and works to ensure our agricultural lands are stewarded in a manner that allows them to continue to thrive, much like I endeavor to do for the watershed which helped make those farms possible.

Image Credit: Connecticut River Conservancy. CCCD Supervisor Kate Buckman points out aspects of a sea lamprey redd while conducting a survey on the Ashuelot River with community volunteers.