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Herring impaired: Towns give hook to fish harvest

By Alice C. Elwell, Enterprise correspondent
When it comes to herring, Middleboro won't swim against the current.

For the first time in more than 330 years, Middleboro and Lakeville will not allow the taking of herring in cooperation with a statewide effort to restore the once-plentiful fish.

A three-year state moratorium banning the harvest, possession or sale of river herring, announced in October by the state marine fisheries advisory commission, closed almost all of the nearly 100 herring runs in the state, including Pembroke's, the site of the town's annual fish fry since 1976.

The Middleboro fishery on the Nemasket River and a tribal fishery owned by the Wampanoag Indians on Martha's Vineyard, which are not overseen by the state, are exempt.

The Middleboro-Lakeville Herring Commission voted earlier this month to support a three-year moratorium banning the "harvest, possession or sale" of river herring for the first time since the area was settled in 1669.

In the case of the tribal fishery, state officials are seeking a legal opinion on whether tribal rights take precedence over the moratorium.

At its peak in 2000, almost 2 million herring traveled through the Middleboro run, said James Coffin, chairman of the Middleboro-Lakeville Herring Commission.

But the numbers have declined and last spring, Coffin said, only an estimated 400,000 herring made their way up the Nemasket River to spawn in Assawompset Pond.

River herring — blueback and alewives — have been important to the people living along the banks of the Nemasket River for thousands of years, said Dorothy Thayer, director of Middleboro's Historical Museum.

The herring were essential to the early Wampanoag Indian tribes, the colonists and fish mongers at the turn of the century who bid for fishing rights.

The small bony, smelly, oily fish is one of the fundamental threads in the region's food web, said Dr. Michael Armstrong, program manager of the state Division of Marine Fisheries in Gloucester.

The fish converts plants into protein, earning them the name "striper candy" among fishermen. They are a favorite food of striped bass, and are eaten by bluefish, otters, seals, cormorants and a host of other creatures.

River herring live in the sea, ranging from the Bay of Fundy to the Carolinas, but spawn in fresh water when they are about 4 years old, said Armstrong.

In Middleboro, the fish arrive in the Nemasket River, 27 miles upstream from Mount Hope Bay, in early spring and make their way to the river's headwaters, the 4,000-acre Assawompset Pond complex, which includes Pocksha, Great Quittacas and Little Quittacas ponds.

There they spawn, then return to the sea. The eggs hatch and by fall the young fish swim down the river to the sea.

It is the fish that reach the herring runs in the spring that the state wants to protect, Armstrong said.

"They are the most valuable of the population. They're the survivors," he said, noting that those herring have avoided fish nets and becoming food for any number of other creatures.

While the number of fish taken by humans upstream is small, those fish might just be the ones that guarantee survival of the species, Armstrong said.

Coffin said about 38,000 herring were taken from Middleboro's Nemasket River by permit last spring.

Armstrong said these days, herring is mostly used as bait for sport fishing.

Other species that were depleted for years, like striped bass, have rebounded after state-imposed restrictions, Armstrong said. Striped bass fishing has become a billion dollar industry in Massachusetts, he noted.

Armstrong said there are a number of different factors that led to the herring's decline, among them the resurgence of predators, including striped bass and seals.

Pollution is another problem.

Armstrong said the ban won't affect restocking programs that take spawning herring from healthy runs, such as the one in Middleboro, to restock depleted rivers. Both the state and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will continue restocking programs and look to Middleboro as a source of herring.

Pembroke's Grande Old Fish Fry, an annual Historical Society event begun in 1976, might be in jeopardy due to the ban.

Mark Ames, chairman of the Herring Fisheries Commission, said the town will apply for an exemption to catch the small amount of herring used for the event.

Philip Brady of the state's anadromous fish program said while the state is "sensitive to their (Pembroke's) heritage, we don't know how we're going to handle that. "

He said it's not an exemption the state wants to give.

"We're saying the fish are in bad shape," Brady explained and questioned if it would be reasonable to turn around and let a town cook some herring up for a fish fry.