Herring limits a make-or-break for fishery

November 25, 2009

Letter to the Editor
By Richard Burgess
Gloucester Daily Times

To the editor:

As a commercial groundfish and tuna fisherman, my livelihood is directly related to the health of the herring resource.

The groundfish fishery is highly dependent on herring. Cod, haddock, pollock and other species that support our fishery all feed on herring. If you don’t have enough herring, you won’t have enough groundfish. It is that simple.

It is not just the groundfish fishery that relies on a healthy herring resource, though. Bluefin tuna travel thousands of miles each year and during these long migrations they work up quite a hunger. Many of these fish come to the Gulf of Maine each year to do one thing: eat. And much of what they eat while they are here is herring. So do the stripers and other recreationally-important stocks in our waters.

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