Meet the Fish That Made America Great

(via Atlas Obscura) Of all the species that were once absurdly abundant in American landscape—the bison, the passenger pigeon—the American shad are often forgotten. These impressive fish, the largest type of herring in North America, used to migrate each spring up the eastern seaboard’s great rivers to their spawning grounds, in such great numbers that colonial fishermen could drag thousands out of the water in just a couple of days.