There was widespread concern for river herring populations in Massachusetts in 2022 after three straight years of declining run counts. This followed the promising 2019 returns that were among the highest seen in 15 years in some regions. Thankfully, the spawning runs in 2023 rebounded in most locations.
DMF staff manages eight river herring spawning run counting stations with local partners and provides technical assistance to approximately 30 more counting stations that are mostly volunteer-based visual counts. Most regions rebounded in 2023 with the exception of Narragansett Bay and Buzzards Bay where concerns continue over the extended trend of low counts. Cape Cod, the South Shore, Boston Harbor, and the North Shore all had runs that increased significantly.
Final counts are still coming in. To date, two locations—Herring Brook in Pembroke and Herring River in Harwich—have exceeded a half million fish. Last year, none of the over 40 stations recorded a half million fish. The turnaround in Pembroke is remarkable. After multiple fishway improvements, Herring Brook posted increasing counts to reach over 400,000 in 2019, after which the number of fish plummeted to about 40,000 in both 2021 and 2022. This year in Pembroke, the herring just kept coming, week after week. With over 570,000 herring counted there were a lot of smiles around Herring Brook this spring.
