American Shad

Shad are managed under Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Shad and River Herring. Amendment 3 (2010) revised the American shad regulatory and monitoring programs in response to the 2007 American shad stock assessment, which found that most American shad stocks were at all-time lows and did not appear to be recovering. The Amendment requires states and jurisdictions to develop sustainable fishery management plans (SFMPs), which are reviewed by the Technical Committee and approved by the Board, in order to maintain commercial and recreational fisheries beyond January 2013. The following states have approved SFMPs for shad.

Amendment 3 also requires states and jurisdictions to submit a habitat plan regardless of whether their commercial fishery would remain open. The habitat plans outline current and historical spawning and nursery habitat, threats to those habitats, and habitat restoration programs in each of the river systems. They provide a river system-specific, comprehensive picture of major threats to American shad in each state to aid in future management efforts, and include collaboration with other state and federal agencies (e.g., state inland fish and wildlife agencies, water quality agencies, U.S Army Corps of Engineers). The two largest threats identified in the habitat plans were barriers to migration and a lack of information on the consequences of climate change. A key benefit of the habitat plans is that each river system relevant to shad now has its threats characterized. The habitat plans are filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure that shad habitat is considered when hydropower dams are licensed. They are also shared with inland fisheries divisions to aid in habitat monitoring and restoration efforts. A majority of the habitat plans were approved by the Board in February 2014. Updates will be submitted for Board review and approval.

The 2020 American shad benchmark stock assessment is the most recent assessment for the American shad stock. Similar to the results of the 2007 assessment, the 2020 assessment found coastwide populations to be depleted. Multiple factors, such as overfishing, inadequate fish passage at dams, predation, pollution, water withdrawals, channelization of rivers, changing ocean conditions, and climate change are likely responsible for the decline from historic shad abundance levels. Additionally, the assessment found that shad recovery is limited by restricted access to spawning habitat, with 40% of historic habitat in the US and Canada currently blocked by dams and other barriers. This may equate to a loss of more than a third of spawning adults.

The abundance status of American shad relative to historic levels is unknown for most systems, but was determined to be depleted in the Potomac and Hudson, and not depleted for the Albemarle Sound. Coastwide adult mortality is also largely unknown and juvenile mortality status cannot be determined due to insufficient data collection. The “depleted” determination was used instead of “overfished” because the impact of fishing on American shad stocks cannot be separated from the impacts of all other factors responsible for changes in abundance. The recovery of American shad will need to address multiple threats to shad including anthropogenic (human-caused) habitat alterations, predation by non-native predators, and exploitation by fisheries. The benchmark assessment was endorsed by the Peer Review Panel and accepted by the Board for management use in August 2020. The Board also tasked the Technical Committee with identifying potential paths forward to improve shad stocks given the results of the assessment.

Since the early 1800s, American shad have supported major commercial fisheries along the Atlantic coast and were one of the most valuable food fish of the U.S. Atlantic coast before World War II. The estimated East Coast catch in 1896 was 50 million pounds, but by the 1950s landings had declined to approximately 10 million pounds.

Fisheries included in-river fisheries targeting river-specific stocks and ocean fisheries targeting mixed stocks of schooling shad. In-river landings began decreasing and ocean harvest landings began increasing during the 1970s, with coastwide landings of approximately two million pounds annually. By 1996, ocean harvest comprised 67% of the coastwide landings. In 2005, the directed at-sea fishery for American shad was closed, and subsequent landings from the ocean are only from the bycatch fishery. Approximately 110,027 pounds of American shad were landed in 2022. As of January 1, 2013, only states with a sustainable fishery management plan in place may have directed commercial fisheries for American shad.

Data on American shad recreational fisheries are very limited. Historically, large recreational shad fisheries were known to occur on the Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Santee-Cooper, Savannah, and St. Johns Rivers. The actual harvest (i.e., catch and removal) may amount to only a small fraction of total catch as a result of catch-and-release angling practices. Recreational catch-and-release anglers are encouraged to use a barbless hook and to keep shad in the water when removing the hook to avoid stress to the fish.

The Commission also continues to collaborate with New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) to address bycatch of these species in federal Atlantic herring and Atlantic mackerel fisheries. For Atlantic herring, the Councils set the annual catch cap for shad and river herring at 796,005 pounds in 2019 and have maintained the same limit through 2024. Under Framework 13 by the MAFMC, the catch cap in the Atlantic mackerel fishery increased from the 2019 cap of 196,211 pounds to 284,396 pounds for 2020 through 2022, and the MAFMC has maintained that cap level for 2023 and 2024.