In September the New England Fishery Management Council (Council) set the 2025-2027 quota for herring with an Annual Catch Limit (ACL) of 2,710 metric tons (mt) in 2025 and an ACL of 6,854 mt for 2026 and 2027. The 2024 ACL is 19,141 mt. The new quota is an 89% reduction from 2024.
Never has the herring quota been as low as it will be in 2025. MainePublic photo.
The new quota effectively erases an historic commercial fishery in the Gulf of Maine. “The revised ACL, if approved by NOAA Fisheries as expected, will result in the lowest catch limits in the history of the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan. The new catch limits will not support a directed commercial fishery for Atlantic herring,” the Council stated in a press release.
“The discussion was really tough,” said Togue Brawn, one of Maine’s Council representatives. “You have to go with the best available science, then push back on that science and ask questions. You can’t ignore what fishermen say. But the resource is really down.”
The Council initially had set a herring quota for 2025 of 23,961 mt but the most recent herring stock assessment indicated that the stock remained deeply depleted, despite steep quota reductions beginning in 2018. The spawning biomass of herring remained low, 26% of its target level, and young fish were not entering into the fishery. As a result, the Council asked NOAA for an adjustment to the existing 2025 quota in order to prevent overfishing next year. The aim is to rebuild the stock by 2031 but, as the Council stated, such growth is “behind schedule.”
History
Herring were once the backbone of Maine’s coastal economy. Sardine canning plants dotted the coast in the early 20th century, supplied with juvenile herring by local weirs and stop-seines. Later purse seiners travelled offshore to encircle and harvest migrating herring schools.
The scale of the fishery grew much greater with the advent of foreign herring vessels operating in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank in the 1960s and 1970s. Prior to the institution of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976, foreign vessels fished aggressively in the region. Their herring landings peaked at 1 billion pounds in 1968. By the late 1970s, the herring fishery had crashed.
With tight harvest quotas and elimination of large offshore vessels, herring stocks slowly recovered. In time, however, new large vessels, known as midwater trawlers, entered the fishery. Capable of storing more than a million pounds of fish, the efficiency of midwater trawlers led to the Council prohibiting trawlers’ operating in the Gulf of Maine from June 1 to the end of September.
Ecosystem value
Herring have always had an important role in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem. The oily, nutrient-packed fish are eaten by just about everything: tuna, seabirds, seals, whales, striped bass, cod. As prey, herring are a key element in the Gulf’s abundant food web.
Thus by 2019 the Council required the Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC) for herring explicitly account for the “role of Atlantic herring as forage in the ecosystem by limiting fishing mortality to 80% of what could be allowed at maximum sustainable yield.” This rule further reduced the amount of herring available for harvest by fishermen.
“Now we have a more conservative harvest control rule,” Megan Ware, Department of Marine Resources director of external affairs and Maine Council member. “It’s a more conservative rule at lower biomass. It’s like the size of the pie [the overall herring biomass] is smaller and then the slice of the pie is smaller too.”
Stock Assessments
Every two years the Northeast Fisheries Science Center conducts an assessment of Atlantic herring. The stock assessments indicated the beginning of a population decline in the early 2000s, however, annual fishing quotas remained steady. The 2016-2018 ACL was 104,800 metric tons annually, in line with previous years. But the 2018 herring stock assessment showed that since 2013, fewer young fish were turning up in the population and thus the stock was declining. Specifically, “The recruitment estimates from the most recent five years were among the lowest in the time series. This suggests that the short-to-medium term prognosis for the stock is likely to be relatively poor,” the 2018 assessment stated.
The Council requested that NOAA cut the quota in half. In 2019, the ACL dropped to 15,065 mt; by 2022 it sank to 3,813 mt. In November 2021 the federal government declared the commercial herring fishery a “fishery disaster,” authorizing $11 million in aid for fishermen in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, of which $7 million was assigned to Maine.
“The current assessment shows the herring spawning stock is at 26% [of its target size],” Ware said. “The management plan mandates no fishing when biomass hits 10% of its target size.” Ware acknowledged that errors can occur in stock assessments, referencing a halibut stock assessment several years ago. “The Council can remand the ABCs back to the Science and Statistical Committee under specific criteria, such as an error or missing information. Right now there’s a research track assessment going on for herring.” That assessment looks at all available data and potential model approaches. In particular, researchers will look at whether the assessment model and related surveys are still appropriate given changes in the marine environment and other factors.
The mystery of recruitment
“We haven’t had good years of recruitment in many years. But there’s no clear answer to why. You can’t rebuild the stock without young fish,” Ware said. “The quota cuts began in 2018 and have continued in the years since. But there’s been no response from the stock biomass according to the stock assessment.”
Herring are a cold-water species. The Gulf of Maine has warmed rapidly since 2010. It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that the warmer water is somehow responsible for the decline in young herring. But Ware points out that herring, as well as mackerel stocks have also declined in Canadian waters, such as Nova Scotia and Bay of Fundy.
“Herring wasn’t considered a climate vulnerable species during a review in 2016,” Ware said, referencing study published in 2016. “They don’t have a very long life so with a few years of good recruitment the population could rebuild. We’ve seen the reductions in Canadian quota so they are not declining just in the southern range of the species.”
Large bait companies have shifted away from herring to other sources, such as menhaden and “hard” bait. “The herring companies have seen this coming,” Brawn noted. “Some have other opportunities but it’s still horrible for the businesses.”
With the steady quota reductions, the number of vessels fishing for herring has declined from 50 in 2017 to 21 in 2022. The number of trips taken fell from 737 in 2017 to 76 in 2022, reducing effort in the fishery. With fewer vessels going after herring, it would seem likely that the stock would have the ability to rebuild. This year fishermen reported seeing dense patches of herring throughout inshore Maine in the late summer and early fall months, which they take as a sign the herring are back.
Such sightings are not necessarily contrary to a low biomass of herring, according to Ware. “When the stock is low, we tend to see herring concentrated in inshore Gulf of Maine. It’s a contraction of the stock,” she said. “People aren’t seeing herring on Georges Bank or southern New England at previous rates.”
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