Vol. 3, No. 2 Contents
Headline Back Issues
Spring 1999
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A sticky situation"There's been [herring] eggs around as long as anybody can remember, but it seems that maybe in the last 10 or 15 years there's been sort of a decline in the amount of spawn that's seen up around this way," said Stillman Fitzhenry, a retired fisherman in Cutler, Maine. During the last three lobster fishing seasons, Fitzhenry has helped researchers find out how much spawning is or isn't going on in Downeast Maine as part of a project launched by the Rockland, Maine-based Island Institute with help from researchers David Libby and David Stevenson at the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The project, which has received funding from the Cox Foundation, the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Maine Sardine Council, combines time-tested, first-hand observation with sophisticated computer mapping technology to create a picture of herring spawing activity in the region. Herring eggs, Fitzhenry explained, "are very sticky." When Downeast lobstermen find them stuck to their traps, they call him. Fitzhenry then takes samples from the bottom where the traps were hauled, and, using a Global Positioning System data collector, records the sites' coordinates, which are later downloaded to a computer and mapped at the Island Institute. Support from the fishermen "has been tremendous," according to Bill MacDonald, Marine Resources Director at the Island Institute. Lobster fishermen, he noted, are interested in protecting herring as a bait source, while herring fishermen are concerned about the future of their fishery. |
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