The weather was perfect and there were lots of helping hands Saturday as the Buckeye Brook Coalition celebrated Earth Day with cleanups at several locations. Crews worked at the Warwick Avenue and …
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The weather was perfect and there were lots of helping hands Saturday as the Buckeye Brook Coalition celebrated Earth Day with cleanups at several locations. Crews worked at the Warwick Avenue and West Shore Road crossings of the brook as well as in the vicinity of the Tri-City Elks Lodge on West Shore Road.
The largest contingent of volunteers came from three Boy Scout troops, Pack 1 Warwick, Troop 7 Buttonwoods and Troop 183. In total, there were 35 Boy Scouts.
According to Paul Earnshaw, who organizes the cleanup and oversees the annual count of herring returning to spawn in the brook and Warwick Pond, 27 people have signed up for the fish count. The volunteers spend 10 minutes counting fish as they pass over a white plank embedded in the stream at the Warwick Avenue Bridge.
While volunteers are asked to perform a count once a day, Earnshaw said many are returning three and four times a day, “that’s a great thing, they’re so dedicated.”
He said there have been “some small sightings” of a half-dozen fish, but he’s not concerned yet. He said the water temperature remains low and runs usually don’t start until the water is in the 50s.
Thirty years ago, runs were so plentiful that the brook was so full of fish that they flopped on the banks. As their numbers declined, the state outlawed the netting of the fish, favorite bait for striped bass. In recent years the herring runs have increased, but they are far from what they used to be. The brook is a fragile resource that the coalition has worked to protect.
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