Saving Seafood

Herring count shows more work needed to boost population

October 30, 2025 — Twenty years ago, Massachusetts banned harvesting river herring in an attempt to protect alewife and blueback herring.

Last year the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission released a stock assessment that determined herring populations are stable throughout the coast, including Massachusetts.

Mike Palmer coordinates an annual spring herring count for the Association to Preserve Cape Cod. He said we need to be doing more to help the population rebound.

Palmer said the spring 2025 count showed below-average returns on the Cape. Since then, continuing drought conditions have been tough on river herring that require sufficient river flows to return to the ocean in the fall.

Read the full article at CAI

Council Seeks Applicants for All 2023-2025 Advisory Panels; Wide Range of Monkfish, Groundfish, Rec Fishermen Needed

July 25, 2022 — The following was released by New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council is accepting applications from commercial and recreational fishermen, as well as other stakeholders, to serve on its advisory panels (APs) for the next three years. The term runs from January 2023 through December 2025. The application deadline is August 31, 2022.

The Council currently has nine active advisory panels that cover issues related to groundfish, recreational fishing for groundfish, Atlantic sea scallops, Atlantic herring, monkfish, habitat, skates, whiting, and enforcement.

The Council jointly manages monkfish and spiny dogfish with the Mid-Atlantic Council. The Mid-Atlantic Council has the administrative lead for spiny dogfish and handles the advisory panel solicitation for that fishery, while the New England Council has the administrative lead for monkfish and conducts the Monkfish AP solicitation.

The Council strives to populate its advisory panels with members who: (1) have different areas of expertise; (2) use different gear types; (3) come from the full geographic range of the fishery; and (4) have varied social and economic perspectives.

Read the full release here

Request for Information: NOAA Fisheries Announces River Herring Status Review

August 15, 2017 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is initiating a new status review of alewife and blueback herring. In a status review, we evaluate the best scientific and commercial data available on the current status of the species. We use these reviews to determine whether listing under the Endangered Species Act is warranted.

Through this announcement, we are requesting submission of information on alewife and blueback herring rangewide, including any information on the status, threats, and recovery of the species that has become available since the previous listing determinations in 2013.

Please submit your information by October 16, 2017, either through the e-Rulemaking portal or by mail to:

Tara Trinko Lake

NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region

55 Great Republic Drive

Gloucester, MA 01930

MASSACHUSETTS: All You Need To Know About Cape Cod Herring Runs

May 8, 2017 — For many Cape Cod residents, it’s not spring unless the herring are swimming up local rivers, en route to their summer spawning areas.

These two species of fish, Alewives and Blueback Herring, swarm the Cape’s streams and rivers from hundreds of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean each spring. Amazingly, each individual returns to breed in the same freshwater bodies in which it was born.

Dedicated Herring Counters keep track of them, but the spectacle is seen by all who pay the runs a visit during peak season in April and May.

When to See Herring on Cape Cod

The rest of Eastern Massachusetts often has herring still in migration through mid-June, but on Cape Cod, you’ll see most of them shuffle through by mid-May. They spend the summers in our water bodies, and then head back to sea before autumn.

When driving near rivers and streams, keep an eye out for frenzied seagulls. That’s a clue that herring are running. Water temperature is a tell, also. The fish really crank into gear at 50 degrees.

Cape Cod Herring Run Locations

Monument River Fishway, Bourne – A critical spot for herring, since the groups which flock up this river system are one of the most productive in Massachusetts.

Santuit Pond Fish Ladder – A dam completed in 2013 separates Santuit Pond from the river of the same name at the Santuit Pond Preserve, Mashpee.

Route 130 Herring Run – Not far from the Santuit Pond Ladder, the Rt. 130 ladder next to the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Museum is easily accessible.

Eastham Herring Run – Nestled on the aptly-named Herring Brook Road near Bridge Pond Drive.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

The Stubborn Staying Power of the Alewife Herring

March 16, 2017 — Among the rich natural resources that attracted humans to New York’s harbor was a small migratory fish the colonists called the alewife or sawbelly. As these river herring crowded into spawning creeks every spring, they were noted by the earliest French Jesuits, Dutch trappers and English settlers, and were caught and consumed with abandon by Native Americans and colonists alike.

Alewives are bony, tasty, nutritious and relatively easy to preserve; and, in colonial times, they were abundant. The fish could be eaten by humans or fed to pigs or other livestock. It is highly likely that the famous agricultural mentoring between Squanto, a Patuxet native to what is now Massachusetts, and the pilgrims memorializes yet another less obvious use of herring: as fertilizer for the colonists’ inaugural crops.

Middens and hearths excavated throughout the Northeast are filled with the bones and scales of herring dinners past. But as human settlements grew, both the value and limits of this communal resource became obvious. Alewives were protected by the first known fishery regulations in North America, which date to 1623 in Plymouth Colony. Over time, net sizes, harvest schedules and set locations, as well as catch limits, were all strictly regulated in order to protect these valuable fish.

Read the full story at the New York Times