Tom Lake – The First Fishermen of the River

Our species has found sustenance in the Hudson River for 12,000 years, with aquatic resources being captured for personal and community use, as well as the first commercial endeavors of trade and barter, across those millennia. Tom Lake, an estuary naturalist for the NYSDEC’s Hudson River Estuary Program, will look at the archaeological evidence of the “first fishermen of the river,” what equipment they used, and what they found so abundant and nutritionally important in the estuary.

Tom Lake conducts education programs, maintains the official Hudson River Watershed Fish List, and compiles and edits The Hudson River Almanac, an online natural history journal now completing its 20^th year with more than 4,000 subscribers. He is also an archaeologist and teaches anthropology at SUNY Dutchess Community College. Lake lives near the Hudson River in Dutchess County, and for 20 years commercially fished for American shad until low stocks required that fishing for shad be ended.

Part of a lecture series on the art, culture, and ecology of the Hudson River, sponsored by the Board of Directors of the Hudson River Valley Environmental Education Institute and the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak, www.centerfortheurbanriver.org.