Circular culture tank at Harrison Lake NFH with incubation jars containing American shad eggs. Photo taken by Michael Odom in May 2005.

In 2008, Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery produced and stocked 4.6 million marked American shad fry as part of a cooperative interagency project to restore this commercially and recreationally important fishery species to the Rappahannock River.  All of the released fish carry a permanent tetracycline mark on their ear bones that discern them from wild fish, which will allow biologists to determine the success of the hatchery program.

The migratory American shad, historically the dominant commercial fishery in the Chesapeake Bay and a valuable recreational species, has declined drastically due in part to the loss of hundreds of miles of spawning/nursery habitat by dam construction.  In Virginia, the majority of American shad habitat lost from dam construction occurred in the James and the Rappahannock Rivers.  Providing fish passage at dams and reintroducing young fish to imprint on the historic habitat are key solutions to restoring the species.  The imprinted shad return as adults to spawn 3-5 years after stocking, and have the instinct to return to the upper river where they were originally stocked.

On the Rappahannock River, Embrey Dam at Fredericksburg used to exclude American shad from accessing at least 73 miles of former spawning/nursery habitat.  In 2004, Embrey Dam was demolished, providing American shad and other migratory species unrestricted access to their historic habitat.  However, the remnant American shad stock in the Fredericksburg area was very low and none of the returning adult fish were imprinted to spawn in the habitat above the former dam.  To accelerate the recolonization of the upper river and restore the river's population, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commonwealth of Virginia began stocking marked larval American shad above Embrey Dam in 2003.  For this stocking program, eggs are taken from adult shad captured in the Potomac River at Fort Belvoir, and transferred to Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery and a state hatchery for rearing.  The hatched fry are marked with tetracycline and then stocked into the upper Rappahannock River and one of its tributaries, the Hazel River, well upstream of Fredericksburg.  The young shad spend their first summer of life in the upper river, and then migrate to the ocean the following fall.  An estimated 13,563 of the fish stocked by Harrison Lake NFH this year should return as adults to spawn in future years.