Alewives return to the Bronx

I just read this happy fish tale about a project to restore the alewife (a great bait fish, incidentally) to the Bronx River after centuries of absence.

Thanks to the collaborative efforts of several conservation groups, the Bronx River's ecosystem is now healthy enough to support this perky little herring again, and a whole silvery school of them has just been released into the river by fisheries officials. Hopefully a restored alewife population will also help boost populations of the predatory game fish that dine on them. Who knows, maybe this the first step toward the Bronx River becoming a sport fishing destination! (Though I'm not holding my breath on that front.)

You can read more about it in this New York Times article, and listen to an NPR interview about the event with local Congressman Jose Serrano, who participated in the restocking.