A Warming Hudson River Supports Fewer Fish Despite Improving Water Quality. By Jim Fitzgerald, AP, May 15, 2008. "A report that shows long-term declines for 10 species of Hudson River fish has spawned a campaign to attack a variety of possible causes. The environmental group Riverkeeper announced Thursday that it would take aim at power plant fishkills, invasive species, overfishing and other threats as part of a Hudson Fisheries Defense Campaign. The group's president, Alex Matthiessen, said at a riverside news conference that Riverkeeper, which has worked for decades to improve the Hudson, was surprised by the grim findings of a study it commissioned from Pisces Conservation Ltd, a British consultant. 'We might have been resting on our laurels a bit,' he said. The report, an analysis of data gathered by power companies, found that despite a significant improvement in the Hudson's water quality, 10 of the 13 species it studied show population declines since the mid-1970s. One fish, the rainbow smelt, has not shown up on the surveys at all in recent years, it said. The report suggested a variety of causes including global warming -- the river is 3.6 degrees warmer -- and the invasion of the zebra mussel. It also blamed the five power plants that take in billions of gallons of river water each day -- with countless doomed fish -- as a coolant."
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