River herring
Saturday morning I stopped at the Mashpee River fish ladder by the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Museum on Route 130 to see if the herring were running yet. To my delight, they were. The Mashpee River is approximately four miles long and flows from Mashpee-Wakeby Pond to Popponesset Bay, and then out into the Atlantic Ocean. Each spring, two species of river herring, alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) and blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis), make their way from the sea back to Mashpee Pond…