Following the alewives: Gardiner students wade into science on Cobbossee Stream

CENTRAL MAINE • May 24, 2026

Alewives, a species of river herring, migrate by the millions from salt water to fresh water every spring along the East Coast including Maine to spawn. On Tuesday, Gardiner Area High School freshman were scraping off scales and sliding them into an envelope science teacher Elissa Carter held so the scales collected from each fish could become part of a 10-year set of data on alewife migration on the river that flows from Cobbossee Lake through Pleasant Pond and into the Kennebec River. The scales are used to determine the age of the fish. But instead of the fish being able to continue upstream to spawn, that’s as far as they’ll be able to go, before they likely die. They are stymied by dams.