The Pacific herring is a diminutive fish with an outsized role supporting marine wildlife on the Pacific Flyway, such as the gorgeous surf scoter, above. Due to the foundational importance of herring to birds and other wildlife, Audubon California is spearheading a program  focused on conserving herring in California and the Pacific Flyway.  Now, the California Fish and Game Commission is poised to take strong new action to protect this vital resource.

Every winter and early spring, Pacific herring depart their feeding grounds offshore and aggregate to spawn in protected estuaries, sloughs and inlets along the coast from the Bering and Beaufort seas in Alaska to San Diego Bay. Those of you living near Puget Sound or San Francisco Bay may have witnessed the unique spectacle of dozens of species of waterbirds and marine mammals feasting on herring or eggs during a spawning run.

Yet within that broad range, herring are found in only 2% of the total coastline, highlighting the importance of these areas. San Francisco Bay, our vital, highly urbanized estuary, together with Tomales Bay just to the north, supports an average of half the spawning biomass of all of British Columbia and Puget Sound, combined. This is incredible when considering the much smaller size of these embayments compared with all of the coast of British Columbia and Puget Sound.

This rich productivity makes San Francisco Bay Area the most important site for herring spawning south of Puget Sound, which in turn is a primary reason the Bay is of hemispheric importance to birds. Dozens of species of gulls, migratory ducks, brown pelican, salmon, sea lions, humpback whales, porpoises and dolphins all feed on energy-rich, aggregated herring and roe when it is available. Audubon's analysis of the best available scientific information found that many wildlife species feed preferentially on herring or roe. For example,  surf scoters needs herring roe consumed along the Flyway to store enough fat for the breeding season.

With its sheltered beds of submerged vegetation favored by spawning herrring including Grasilaria algae and eelgrass, Richardson Bay Audubon Center and greater Richardson Bay within San Francisco Bay supports most of the spawn activity in the Bay (see photo of herring roe on beach at the Center, above). As many as 12,000 waterbirds have been counted in one day at the Center, underscoring its flyway-scale importance for waterbirds.

Unfortunately, this foundational forage resource for marine birds and other wildlife on the Pacific Flyway is threatened by current and historic overfishing, loss or degradation of estuarine spawning grounds, and the effects of climate change. Throughout the Flyway, herring spawning biomass and total area used by herring for spawning is reduced compared with past decades. Fish are smaller and younger, a classic sign of stress in forage fish stocks. This has reduced the availability of this key resource to dependent birds and other predators.

Due to the importance of herring to birds and other marine wildlife, and associated threats,  Audubon California has spearheaded a state program for herring conservation. In the past two years, we worked with our NGO partners and collaborated with fishermen and the Department of Fish and Wildlife to advance a set of key conservation objectives. First, in light of the needs of predators and to facilitate further recovery of the stock, we asked for a freeze on the low harvest rate in San Francisco Bay, the only site in the state where fishing is currently taking place. Second, we asked that areas outside of San Francisco Bay, such as Tomales Bay, be closed to commercial fishing pending an assessment of those stocks, which has not taken place for manyyears. Finally, we asked that is become easier for fishermen to sell herring as fresh local food fish, which will promote it as a delicious, locally sourced higher value food product and allow fishermen to earn more money catching less fish.

All of these improvements to management reflect the goals of the state’s important new policy on the conservation of forage fish, adopted by the Commission last year. The policy calls out the importance of forage fish for California’s wildlife and economy, and calls for no new fisheries on forage fish or expansion of existing fisheries such as herring without understanding the needs of marine predators.

We were pleased when Department responded with a proposed program that helps protect herring, by agreeing to most of these sensible requests. We were disappointed, however, that the Department did not take the important step of recommending a harvest quota of zero next year in unassessed areas such as Tomales Bay and Humboldt Bay. While it is our position that commercial fishing for herring is compatible with good stewardship, it is simply dangerous to allow fishing for herring without knowing something about the size and health of these stocks. The Department did, however, leave open the option for the Commission to take this action, by recommending a quota of zero through 350 tons for Tomales Bay. While commercial fishing for herring is allowed in Tomales Bay and Humboldt Bay, due to currently low prices for herring- which can change at any time – no one has fished in these areas for at least five years. There would, therefore, be no economic harm in closing fisheries there pending a much-needed stock assessment.

There is ample reason for optimism and excitement about herring supporting our wildlife far into the future; for example, our highly urbanized San Francisco Bay supports herring spawning activity along some of our most industrialized shorelines on the City’s edge. Herring have the ability to co-exist with human activity, a valuable trait in our modern age. Herring also support the last commercial fishery in San Francisco Bay, and we believe that a modest fishery is compatible with a thriving herring resource, as long as the needs of predators are accounted for in setting harvest quotas.

The Fish and Game Commission has ultimate authority over herring fishing regulations. Audubon will be testifying at their August 7 meeting and will be asking for your support in the coming two weeks. Stay tuned!