River herring. Photo credit: Chris Bowser, NY State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Alewife and blueback herring, collectively known as “river herring,” are a linchpin of the Atlantic ecosystem and key prey species for countless marine and freshwater animals. But today, where millions of these fish once swam, they now number in the thousands, or even mere hundreds. In August, because of the perilous status of this important species, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a petition with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to have alewife and blueback herring listed as a “threatened species” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This would mean that without substantial intervention, river herring are likely to become endangered and eventually extinct throughout all or significant portions of their ranges.

In response to the petition, NMFS agreed that a “threatened” listing may be warranted, and it will now take the next twelve months to conduct a scientific review that will determine the next course of action. If river herring are listed under the ESA, they will be better protected against bycatch in ocean fisheries, which studies estimate kills roughly 12 million fish annually, and they will also be better protected against water pollution, dams and other harms.

In order to ensure that NMFS undertakes a comprehensive and fully-independent scientific review and does not cut corners or cave to outside pressures, we need you to reach out to NMFS and ask that its review of the status of river herring be based on the best available science.

Click here to send your comments to NMFS and help protect river herring!

You’ve probably never seen Atlantic menhaden on a restaurant menu, and maybe you’ve never even heard of this little fish. But Atlantic menhaden, which have been called the “most important fish in the sea,” need your help.

Atlantic menhaden (Photo credit: Phillip Jones, courtsey of South Carolina Department of Natural Resources)

Atlantic menhaden are small, oily fish that are an important food for striped bass, bluefish, tuna, whales, porpoises, seabirds, and many other wildlife – but they are also caught for use as lobster bait or in a variety of consumer products such as pet food and fish oil supplements. While menhaden used to be abundant along the east coast of the United States, overfishing has resulted in the population dropping to a historic low. A declining menhaden population is detrimental to the marine ecosystems and predators that depend on this fish and to New England’s coastal economies, whose commercial and recreational businesses rely on the fish that prey on menhaden.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), a deliberative body made up of representatives from the coastal Atlantic states that coordinates the conservation and management of the states’ shared fishery resources (including menhaden), recently took an important first step to protect the menhaden population by laying out a plan to increase the number left in the ocean and preserve the marine ecosystems that depend upon this important fish. The ASMFC will meet in November to vote on the plan – so the time to make your voice heard in support of protection for menhaden is now. Click here to send a message to the ASMFC urging it to approve actions to protect menhaden from overfishing and restore the population to healthy levels.

Make your voice heard, and help us save the “most important fish in the sea.”

The following op-ed was written by CLF Maine Director Sean Mahoney and published on Saturday, December 18 in the Portsmouth Herald.

On Monday, Dec. 20, a committee of the New England Fishery Management Council will meet in Portsmouth to continue the effort to develop a new management plan for Atlantic herring.

Atlantic herring are not only valuable as bait for lobstermen, but are a key forage fish for bigger fish and marine mammals such as striped bass, cod, tuna, dolphins and whales. The work of the council’s Herring Committee is critically important not just for the sustainability of Atlantic herring but for the continued viability of these other fisheries and tourism-related industries such as whale watching.

The Atlantic herring fishery is currently dominated by midwater trawling vessels. These vessels are large (up to 150 feet) and often fish in pairs, where their small-mesh nets the size of a football field, can be stretched between two boats. These small-mesh nets are efficient killing machines. The problem is they are also indiscriminate killing machines — any fish or marine mammal that is ensnared by the small-mesh nets is unlikely to survive, even if they are thrown back into the water after the nets are hauled on deck. These dead fish — referred to as bycatch or discards — include not just the fish that prey on Atlantic herring, such as stripers or haddock, but also the Atlantic herring’s cousins — alewives and blueback herring.

Alewives and blueback herring (collectively referred to as river herring) are anadramous fish — they are born in freshwater, spend most of their lives in the ocean, and then return to freshwater to spawn. The rivers of New England were teeming with river herring up to the 1980s. But in the last 20 years, their numbers have dropped precipitously. For example, until 1986 the number of river herring returning to spawn in the Taylor River averaged between 100,000 to 400,000 a year. But by 2000, that number had declined to 10,000 to 40,000 a year, and in 2006, only 147 river herring returned to the Taylor River. This is a tragedy for New Hampshire’s wildlife conservation.

The causes of the dramatic decline in the numbers of river herring include the fishing practices of the midwater trawl vessels. While at sea, river herring can often be found in the same waters as Atlantic herring and fall victim to the indiscriminate fishing practices of the midwater trawlers. In 2007, bycatch documentation showed that three times the amount of river herring was taken in one tow of one of these industrial vessels as returned that year to the Lamprey River, which boasts New Hampshire’s largest remaining population of river herring.

The meeting of the council’s Herring Committee will focus on management steps to curb this wasteful practice. Central to the success of any management effort must be a robust monitoring program, catch caps on river herring to serve as a strong incentive to avoid areas where river herring are known to aggregate and strong accountability measures to be applied when those catch caps are exceeded.

If river herring are to avoid the fate of Atlantic salmon — another anadramous species all but extirpated from New England’s rivers where they once teemed — a critical step is putting an end to the indiscriminate fishing practices of the midwater trawl boats pursuing Atlantic herring. All other efforts to improve the access to and water quality of the waters river herring spawn in are of little value if they are killed before they get there.

> Read more about CLF’s regional ocean conservation work