Diadromous Fish Investigations, 2016: Anadromous Alosid Restoration and Evaluation

Eight fishways on six New Hampshire (NH) coastal rivers were operated during the spring of 2016 to facilitate the passage of river herring (Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus and Blueback Herring Alosa aestivalis), American Shad Alosa sapidissima, and other diadromous fish over dams. Estimated numbers of river herring using all coastal river fish ladders in 2016 increased by approximately 40.5% from 2015. Alewives dominated returns to the Cocheco, Exeter, and Lamprey rivers while the Oyster River had a slightly higher percentage of Blueback Herring returning. The Oyster River continues to have low return numbers and exhibits signs that habitat problems are inhibiting restoration efforts. The Winnicut River fishway is ineffective at passing river herring and an investigation to determine a solution is ongoing. In the absence of restoration efforts, no American Shad returned to NH fishways in 2016. In an effort to enhance local spawning stocks, thousands of river F-61-RI-1_16_AR Page 2 herring were transferred from the Cocheco and Lamprey rivers to the Merrimack River drainage to assist in anadromous fish restoration efforts. In 2016, 2,250 river herring were stocked in impoundments or lakes within the Great Bay Estuary drainage. The NH Fish and Game Department has continued to work with state and federal agencies and non-governmental organizations on various cooperative diadromous fish passage projects on coastal NH rivers

Anadromous Fish Investigations, Year 2005

Seven department fish ladders on six coastal rivers were operated during the spring of 2005 to facilitate the passage of river herring, American shad, and other diadromous fish over dams. Estimated numbers of river herring monitored in 2005 were lower than in 2004 in all six rivers. This may be attributed to high flows in all monitored rivers during the river herring run. Record low returns at the Exeter and Taylor river ladders are of concern. Possible causes of low return numbers in the Exeter are low dissolved oxygen levels in the river, impediments to downstream migration, excessive harvest by the in-river fishery, or a combination of the three. Alewives constituted 100% of the returns in the Lamprey and Exeter rivers and dominated returns in the Cocheco and Winnicut rivers. River herring returns in the Oyster and Taylor rivers were exclusively blueback herring. Confirmed returns of shad to the fishways were 12 in the Lamprey, three in the Exeter, and eight in the Cocheco rivers. The number of returns to the Exeter River decreased from 22 in 2004 to three in 2005. It is speculated that the reduction in returns could be due to water quality problems in the impoundment above the dam or incidental mortality in the in-river fishery for river herring. Biological samples indicated that ages ranged from III to VII and the ratio of males to females was three to one. In a concerted effort between New Hampshire Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), approximately 3,200 river herring were transferred into impoundments or lakes in the Great Bay Estuary drainage to enhance spawning stocks. No American shad were stocked this year as low numbers at the Merrimack River fish lift prevented collection of gravid adults. In addition, other collaborative efforts to restore anadromous fish to NH coastal rivers include dam removal or fish passage projects on three rivers within the Great Bay system. The first dam located at the head-of-tide on the Bellamy River was removed in 2004 to provide access to additional spawning and rearing habitat for species such as river herring and rainbow smelt. A feasibility study has recently been completed on fish passage options for the Winnicut River dam with dam removal and installation of a technical fishway at the next upstream barrier being chosen as the preferred option. Finally, a nature-like fishway has been selected as the preferred option for fish passage at Wiswall Dam on the Lamprey River and an Environmental Assessment for this project has been developed and approved

On Some Myths about Sequenced Common-valued Auctions

Equilibria are constructed for classes of game models of sequenced second-price auctions having identical common-valued objects. In some of these the equilibrium price falls on average, and in others the seller loses on average by committing to announce publicly something that he knows. Both of these possibilities are surprisesPublicad

An experimental study of communication and coordination in noncooperative games

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to test the usefulness of alternative solution concepts to explain players' behavior in noncooperative games with preplay communication. In the experiment subjects communicate byplain conversationprior to playing a simple game. In this setting, we find that the presumption ofindividualisticandindependentbehavior underlying the concept of Nash equilibrium is inappropriate. Instead, we observe behavior to becoordinatedandcorrelated. Statistical tests reject Nash equilibrium as an explanation of observed play. The coalition proof correlated equilibrium of the game, however, explains the data when the possibility of errors by players is introducedPublicad

Coalition-proof equilibrium

We characterize the agreements that the players of a noncooperative game may reach when they can communicate prior to play, but they cannot reach binding agreements: A coalition-proo[ equilibrium is a correlated strategy from which no coalition has an improving and self-enforcing deviation. We show that any correlated strategy whose support is contained in the set of actions that survive the iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies and weakly Pareto dominates every other correlated strategy whose support is contained in that set, is a coalition-proof equilibrium. Consequently, the unique equilibrium of a dominance solvable game is coalition-proof.Publicad

Testing of Great Bay Oysters for Two Protozoan Pathogens

Two protozoan pathogens, Haplosporidium nelsoni (MSX) and Perkinsus marinus (Dermo) are known to be present in Great Bay oysters. With funds provided by the New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP), the Marine Fisheries Division of New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, (NHF&G) has continued assessing the presence and intensity of both disease conditions in oysters from the major beds, some open for harvest, within the Great Bay estuarine system

Reputation and perfection in repeated common interest games

We consider a wide class of repeated common interest games perturbed with one-sided incomplete information: one player (the informed player) might be a commitment type playing the Pareto dominant action. As discounting, which is assumed to be symmetric, and the prior probability of the commitment type go to zero, it is shown that the informed player can be held close to her minmax payoff even when perfection is imposed on the equilibrium

Optimizing information in the herd : guinea pigs, profits, and welfare

Herding arises when an agent's private information is swamped by public information in what M. O. Jackson and E. Kalai (1997, Games Econ. Behavior21, 102–134) call a recurring game. The agent will fail to reveal his own information and will follow the actions of his predecessor and, as a result, useful information is lost, which might have highlighted a better choice for later decision-makers. This paper evaluates the strategy of forcing a subset of agents to make their decision early from the perspective of a social planner, and a firm with a valuable or valueless product. Promotional activity by firms can be explained as an attempt to overcome the herd externality and maximize sales

The scholarship assignment problem

There are n graduate students and n faculty members. Each student will be assigned a scholarship by the joint faculty. The socially optimal outcome is that the best student should get the most prestigious scholarship, the second-best student should get the second most prestigious scholarship, and so on. The socially optimal outcome is common knowledge among all faculty members. Each professor wants one particular student to get the most prestigious scholarship and wants the remaining scholarships to be assigned according to the socially optimal outcome. We consider the problem of finding a mechanism such that in equilibrium, all scholarships are assigned according to the socially optimal outcome.Publicad