Fishery regulators impose catch limits on river herring and shad
The New England Fishery Management Council voted on Thursday to set the Northeast region's first cap on accidental bycatch of river herring, shad and other anadromous fish that live their adult lives at sea but spawn in Maine’s largest rivers.
Maine Public Broadcasting Network reported that large Atlantic herring trawlers would have to limit their total annual bycatch of river herring and other anadromous species to 86 metric tons as they’re netting other fish.
A fact sheet from The Herring Alliance, a coalition of environmental and public interest organization seeking to reform the Atlantic herring fishery, cites a serious decline of populations of alewives and blueback herring along the Atlantic Coast in recent years, due in part to offshore trawlers. The river herring play an important ecological role in rivers and coastal waters as a crucial source of food to wildlife, including near-shore cod, the alliance states.
Peter Baker from the Pew Environmental Group told MPBN the council's decision complements Maine’s efforts on the Penobscot and other rivers to improve access to the river herrings’ upriver spawning grounds.
“The State of Maine is spending millions of dollars to take down dams so these little fish can swim upriver and spawn,” Baker said. “And if we’re wasting these fish at sea throwing them overboard dead, they we’re wasting the taxpayers’ money who are paying to take these dams down and restore these rivers.”
Despite the river habitat restoration efforts in Maine, Baker told MPBN the river herring and shad populations are still near historic lows.
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