Herring

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Herring (Clupea harengus)
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Author's Notes

I have witnessed a herring school swim briefly alongside a boat, their huge numbers darkening the water as far as the eye could see. I have seen enormous schools of herring represented on the sonar screen of a herring purse seiner. I have seen tons of those very same herring seined and trawled off shore and pumped into a fish hold. I have seen a herring school eclipse the sun overhead while diving on an offshore pinnacle in the Gulf of Maine. The underwater school looked like one massive organism, pulsating and shifting this way and that, their silver flanks reflecting my underwater strobes. A million expressionless eyes stared back from the wall of fish above me. At night, the glow of phosphorescent plankton marks the passage of these schools.

The Atlantic herring is a small, pelagic plankton-feeder that grows to a maximum of 17 inches and 1.5 pounds. Distinguishing characteristics include a dorsal fin located midway along the body and a weak saw-toothed keel along the belly. The fish is iridescent, greenish or grayish blue dorsally with a silvery abdomen and sides.

The "pearl essence" of the scales was extracted by the Englehard Corporation of Eastport, Maine for use as a pigment in cosmetics and paints. This type of coloration ("countershading") is common in pelagic species of fish, as it provides a degree of camouflage in open waters. If viewed at close range, the Atlantic herring can be positively identified by its conspicuous cluster of small teeth arranged in an oval shape on the roof of its mouth. No other herring species possesses this distinctive circle of teeth.

What distinguishes Atlantic herring from all other herring and, in fact, all other fish species in the Gulf of Maine, is their great abundance. Linneaeus (the father of modern classification) referred to the herring as "copiosissimus piscis," or, in other words, the most prolific of fish. [4] Count the individual fish in the Gulf of Maine - (a task akin to counting the ants in Portland, Maine) - and the Atlantic herring vastly outnumbers the other species. Herring are pelagic, fish that inhabit the open sea and offshore banks for most of their lives. Young juveniles ("brit") are numerous in inshore waters along the Maine coast in the spring and summer. Adults migrate across hundreds of miles of ocean during their life span.

In the winter, schools of migrating Atlantic herring can join forces, forming massive expanses of fish as far as the eye can see. In the North Atlantic, people have observed herring schools measuring up to 4.5 billion cubic meters (over 4 cubic kilometers) in volume, with densities of up to 1 fish per cubic meter. [5] In a wonderful passage from Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, Bigelow and Schroeder provide perspective on the historical abundance of Atlantic herring. "To list the localities where herring have been recorded would be to mention every hamlet along our coasts whence fishing boats put out, for more or less herring, large or small, appear at one season or another around the entire coast line of the Gulf of Maine, and on the offshore fishing banks as well." [6]

Due to their great abundance, the Atlantic herring became one of the most important and sought after fish species in the Gulf of Maine. They still are. References: [1] Moyle, P.B. and J.J. Cech. (1992) Fishes, An introduction to Ichthyology, 2nd Edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey. 559 pp. [2] Waller, G., Ed. (1996) SeaLife: A complete guide to the marine environment. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 504 pp. [3] Collette, B.B. and G. Klein-MacPhee, eds. (2002) Bigelow and Shroeder's Fishes of the Gulf of Maine. A complete guide to the marine environment. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 748 pp. [4] Stephenson, R.L. (2001) The role of herring investigations in shaping fisheries science. Herring: Expectations for a New Millenium. Alaska Sea Grant College Program. AK-SG-01-04. [5] Radakov, DV. (1972) Schooling in the ecology of fish. Wiley, New York. 173 pp. [6] Bigelow, H. B. and W. C. Schroeder. (1953) Fishes of the Gulf of Maine. Fishery Bulletin Of The Fish and Wildlife Service.