The alewife is an invasive species that entered the Great Lakes 50 or so years ago. The sheer volume of them led to die offs that left millions of alewives rotting on beaches. This led to the introduction of Pacific salmon species in the mid-1960's in an atttempt to control the alewives. The Pacific salmon did their job and helped create a boom in the Great Lakes sport fishery. Alewives are still present, but much reduced in numbers. In Lake Huron, their numbers may be too low at present to support a significant salmon fishery. Time will tell.
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Isn't it amazing how some of these invasive species soon become an integral part of the survival of the species that we love? The Lake MI browns and smallmouth are loving the gobies and our salmon numbers/size are in direct correlation with the alewife population. It's not all bad when you think about it that way. I've also heard speculation that the zebra mussels may have made much of Lake Michigan "too clean" and inhospitable for the Asian (silver) carp. Let's hope so...
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