The report studied that out f 12 key species 10 have declined in abundance since the 1980s including shad, tomcod and white perch. Three species, striped bass, bluefish and spottail shiner, have increased due to circumstantial changes that favour them. There are other species which has not been included in the study such as American eel also show long-term declines.
It is public perception that the Hudson River is in good health but the new evidence indicates an increasingly unstable ecosystem and long-term declines for signature Hudson River fish species. According to the Riverkeeper the power plants kill fish in staggering numbers. It is found that each year power plants withdraw more than 70 trillion gallons of water from US oceans, rivers, lakes and reservoirs, killing billions of adult and juvenile fish and shellfish, larvae, eggs and other organisms.
It is obvious that power plants use the water to cool their facilities and discharge heated water back into the rivers, lakes and reservoirs. Riverkeeper informed that it has fought to have closed-cycle cooling, the “best technology available” (BTA), installed in all Hudson River power plants, as required by the Clean Water Act. Closed-cycle cooling would eliminate 95 percent of the massive fish kills currently caused by the power plants.
Riverkeeper asked the Pisces Conservation to analyze the state of fish in the Hudson, using data collected by the power plants themselves since the 1980s. Even Pisces’ report found that the temperature of Hudson River water has risen 2 °C (3.6 °F) since the 1960s. It is serous issue that the decline of Hudson River fish could pose more dangerous implications for the health of ocean fisheries.
