What if There were No River Fisheries in Downeast Maine?

Downeast’s Maine’s rivers have supported commercial, recreational, and sustenance fisheries for hundreds of years. To understand the importance of these fisheries, we asked harvesters and other community members, “What would Downeast Maine be like if there were no river fisheries?” Most of the community members shown in this video are alewife and elver (juvenile American eel) harvesters. Their responses largely reflect the economic importance of these fisheries in Downeast Maine. Alewives are a preferred type of bait for Maine’s lobster fishery, the largest fishery in Maine in both landings and value. This video was produced as part of an oral history project carried out by Maine Sea Grant and NOAA Fisheries in the spring of 2014 with financial support from NOAA’s Preserve America Initiative.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/seagrant_videos/1005/thumbnail.jp