American Shad Population on the Eastern Seaboard (1500-Present)

Population Timeline:

Pre-Colonial Period (1500s): American shad were extremely abundant along the Atlantic Coast. Native Americans relied heavily on seasonal shad runs for food.
Colonial Period (1600-1750s): Indigenous peoples taught European colonists how to catch and preserve shad. European settlers documented the massive abundance of shad in rivers and streams.
Late 1700s-Early 1800s: The Merrimack River alone had around 900,000 shad harvested in 1789. Between 1750-1850, the Atlantic Coast's population grew from hundreds of thousands to two million people.
Mid-1800s: In the 1840s, approximately 40,000 tons of shad were being harvested annually from rivers. A notable event in 1840 significantly changed migration patterns in the Susquehanna River.
Late 1800s: The estimated East Coast catch in 1896 was 50 million pounds. By the end of the 19th century, the annual catch had fallen to just 4,000 tons.
Early-Mid 1900s: By the 1950s, landings had declined to approximately 10 million pounds. A 1939 report by the Maryland Conservation Department documented significant changes in shad populations.
Late 1900s: By the 1970s, coastwide landings were approximately two million pounds annually. The Chesapeake shad annual harvest dropped from 17.5 million pounds at the turn of the century to less than two million pounds by the 1970s.
2000s-Present: In 2005, the directed at-sea fishery for American shad was closed. The 2020 American shad benchmark stock assessment found coastwide populations to be "depleted." Current catches are about 1% of their late-1800s levels.

Sources:

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (2020). American shad benchmark stock assessment.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Historical accounts of shad abundance and decline.
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. Historical records of American shad fisheries.
Susquehanna River Basin Commission. Historical fisheries data.
Scientific literature on pre-colonial and historical fish abundance estimations.

Note: This visualization represents the best available data from historical records and scientific research. Pre-colonial population levels (1500-1600) are estimated based on accounts of abundance and are set at 100% as a baseline for comparison.