Massachusetts NFC to Use Volunteers to Help Monitor Fish at Cheesecake Brook...
NFC Executive Director Bob Mallard (second from left) tours Cheesecake Brook in Newton, Massachusetts, while members of MA NFC look for fish…
In 2025, Massachusetts NFC adopted Cheesecake Brook in Newton, Massachusetts, for a Holistic Stream Assessment/Restoration project. Cheesecake Brook is a unique urban waterway that while buried for much of its length, including beneath the busy Mass Turnpike, flows above ground for its last 1.5 miles before emptying into the Charles River.
While straightened, dug down, and walled in, Cheesecake Brook has a solid year-round flow and some level of instream structure and sinuosity. The stream is oddly rich in aquatic insects, and while previously believed to be fishless, NFC confirmed that it is home to native white suckers, pumpkinseed sunfish, and catadromous American eels, as well as nonnative common carp.
A cement slab protecting a municipal sewer pipe on Cheesecake Brook just upstream of the Charles River is an impediment to fish passage…
To date, the only white suckers NFC has confirmed have been young of the year. Primarily a river species due to their size, adults run from 12” to over 20”, this means that either juveniles are navigating the cement slab after being born in the lower stream, or adult fish are spawning in the upper stream undetected.
It is also possible that anadromous river herring are using the stream or trying to do so. Herring are known to pass over Watertown Dam downstream of where Cheesecake Brook enters the Charles River. They have also been conformed upriver of Cheesecake Brook at Beaver Brook.
Unfortunately, NFC cannot be at Cheesecake Brook 7x24. To increase coverage, we are looking to engage the public in regard to monitoring Cheesecake Brook for fish. The objective is to try to confirm the presence of large fish such as spawning white suckers, schools of fish such as river herring, and fish navigating or trying to navigate the cement slab.
To recruit and help our volunteers, NFC has created an informational sign with an email address for reporting sightings, as well as a QR code linked to an online form for reporting sightings. The form is live, the signs are ordered, and we are confirming posting locations. As soon as the signs are posted we will start collecting data…
