Thousands of herring wash up in Norway NORDREISA, Norway, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Experts said they do not know why 22 tons of dead herring washed up on the western coast of Norway. The Norwegian Institute of Marine Research said thousands of herring were found on Kvaenes beach in Nordreisa in late December, and experts with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim said the amount of dead fish is unprecedented, Britain's The Sun newspaper reported Tuesday. "We have seen herring stranded before but never this much," biologist Ole Kristian Berg said. Berg said the fish may have been stranded by tides, chased into the area by a predator or killed by freshwater from a river that flows into the ocean.