A tool for understanding likely fish passage and harvest management outcomes for alewife on the St. Croix River

The board incorporated recently developed alewife population models into a user friendly, plain language tool depicting the theoretical outcomes of: i) changes in fish passage and ii) commercial harvest to alewife runs in the St. Croix River. The end-product was a graphic web-based application that can inform future management scenarios by providing a clear communication platform to weigh the theoretical pros and cons of specific options. Building on the data collected from the fish counts at the Milltown Dam and the assessments of fish ladders along the St. Croix River, this project focused on developing an online tool to estimate potential changes to alewife populations resulting from changes in fish passages and in commercial harvest management on the St. Croix River. Results from this user-friendly, plain-language tool will provide a clear platform for communication and weighing and assessing pros and cons associated with theoretical management scenarios. This project is also highlighted in our IWI projects StoryMap here.