Atlantic herring is a major forage species off the northeast coast of North America, feeding valuable groundfish
such as cod, hake, haddock, flounder, monkfish, and dogfish, pelagic fish species such as bluefin tuna, swordfish,
and bluefish, as well as striped bass, black sea bass, Atlantic salmon, sharks and skates, and even squid. Many
species of seabirds and marine mammals also rely heavily on herring as a major food source.1 The
recovery of overfished groundfish and pelagic fish species may depend on the abundance and availability of herring
as a food source.
Fishery
Record-setting catches by the so-called �distant water� factory trawlers of Spain, the Soviet Union and other
foreign countries during 1960s and 1970s led to the collapse of the New England herring stock. After the U.S.
declaration of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in 1976 and expulsion of the foreign fishing vessels,
a domestic herring fishery continued to operate at much lower levels. The Gulf of Maine-Georges Bank herring
stock complex began to recover during the late 1980s with limited fishing. The herring stock did not recover
fully until the 1990s and current stock biomass (age 2+) is now believed to be comparable to the 1960s.
Since the mid-1990s, the New England herring trawl fishery has once again expanded and is now the largest
fishery in the region, supplying markets for canned, frozen and salted products as well bait for commercial
lobster, crab and tuna fisheries in New England.
Estimated stock biomass increased from a low of about 105,000 tons in 1982 to near 1.3 million tons in 2001,
but declined to about 1.0 million tons in 2005.
Management Issues
Although the stock as a whole is not considered overfished at present and estimated fishing mortality has
been relatively low compared to the peak years of the fishery in the 1960s, more attention needs to be focused
on the herring stock structure and the potential vulnerability of subpopulations to localized overfishing.
Herring biologists generally agree that there are three major stocks or stock "composites" of herring in the
Gulf of Maine and the Georges Banks area that return to the same spawning grounds every year. Each of these
stocks may in turn be composed of smaller groups that spawn on individual banks or coastal locations.
There is also growing concern about the rapid expansion of the nearshore trawl fishery in the Gulf of Maine
and the impacts on foraging whales as well as high bycatch of overfished cod, haddock and other fish that are
caught incidentally in the herring trawl fishery. In addition, the herring management plan does not explicitly
consider the needs of predators when setting the annual quota.
According the Atlantic Herring Alliance, fishery managers need to address three critical issues in 2008:
- Better accounting for what the industrial mid-water herring trawl fleet catches and what it catches but
throws away (discards)
- Creation of buffer zones to protect inshore coastal waters from the herring trawl fleet
- Address the needs of predators when setting catch levels
