Herring are harbingers of spring. The first of them usually appear in Island waters now. But there is serious concern about the health of the fishery across the region.
Although Massachusetts is in the third year of a moratorium on the harvesting of these small fish, the fishery has failed to rebound. Fishing prohibitions are also in place in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Also known as alewives and river herring, these anadromous fish make a pilgrimage every spring into coastal estuaries, to spawn in the freshwater pond where they themselves were created.
Years ago herring was a huge industry. Fishermen set up tents at Mattakessett and harvested fish at night by the tons. The fish were exported to the mainland by the barrels.
Today these fish are a fraction of what used to be.
In the last few years river herring have become the flashpoint for a battle between conservation groups trying to protect habitat and fish stocks and an expanding commercial fishing industry working offshore.
Herring are forage fish. Just about every fish that swims in the ocean feeds on herring to grow and prosper. Osprey, bluefish, striped bass and even whales feed on these animals come to these waters to feed on them when they are small fry to adult.
Herring feed on algae, transforming the microscopic plants and animals that are in the water column into protein that bigger fish can eat.
“Herring are important forage fish for a lot of species. The osprey migrate north following the return of the herring,” said David Grunden, shellfish constable for Oak Bluffs.
Massachusetts has about 100 herring runs in varying stages of health. There has been an overall effort on land to build herring ladders to ensure that when the fish return they can climb into the freshwater ponds. On the Vineyard alone, there are more than five herring runs.
Oak Bluffs and Tisbury share a well-managed herring run at the Head of Lagoon Pond, named after Richard Madeiras, Mr. Grunden’s predecessor. Up until the moratorium, Tisbury and Oak Bluffs managed the run, setting catch limits and times when fishermen could harvest the fish.
The shellfish constables, noticing a decline in the herring run, took steps to lower the catch limits to as little as a small bucket of fish per night. For the last two years the run has been closed to all fishing.
Derek Cimeno, shellfish constable for Tisbury, who shares the responsibility for the herring run with Mr. Grunden, said he saw just two herring this week. He is concerned.
“We had some really great years five or six years ago,” Mr. Cimeno said.
The Aquinnah herring run managed by the Wampanoag Tribe seems to be the only Vineyard run doing well.
Elsewhere in the state, herring stocks are a fraction of what they were.
Now attention is being directed to what is happening offshore. It is widely known that the herring from the Vineyard and Cape Cod will spend their summers in the Gulf of Maine and as far east as Georges Bank.
“They go to the Gulf of Maine in summer and farther south off the Carolinas and New Jersey in the winter. Herring follow the same scenario as shad,” said Mike Armstrong, who studies anadromous fish for the state Division of Marine Fisheries.
Mr. Armstrong is charged with overseeing the herring fishery. He said since the herring moratorium was imposed, he believes the stocks at the runs have stabilized and fortunately not gotten worse. But he also is concerned that the herring have lost freshwater habitat.
“If we stopped fishing for everything, the herring won’t necessarily come back because you have lost habitat,” he said. “If we had a healthy herring fishery, it would only be a remnant of what was here 300 years ago.”
With the moratorium due to end this year, the next big question is what to do next. Options are to extend the moratorium, lift the moratorium or impose restrictive catch limits.
“We are putting together a technical report that will come out next year on the state of the stock. It will be based on scientific data, landings and an awful lot of data that we’ve collected in the last four years,” Mr. Armstrong s