Networking for River Herring

Photo: WHOI Sea Grant educator Grace Simpkins shows members of the River Herring Network a river herring life cycle educational activity she uses in the classroom.

More than eighty people attended the Massachusetts River Herring Network annual meeting in Orleans on November 1. The goal of the organization, whose members include river herring wardens, town committee members, volunteer herring counters, state agency staff, and watershed and environmental organization staff and volunteers, is to do work that will increase the numbers of alewife and blueback herring in the waters of Massachusetts. The River Herring Network is coordinated by WHOI Sea Grant marine extension team member Abigail Archer.
This year’s presentations, given by representatives and staff from the MA Division of Marine Fisheries and the Office of Environmental Law Enforcement, the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, WHOI Sea Grant, and representatives from the Town of Orleans, were engaging and generated lots of questions and conversation. During a field trip to Pilgrim Lake to see the new fish ladder, the participants got to see juvenile river herring moving downstream!