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Thousands of dead herring wash up on North Beach shore in Cedar
Discovery has fishery officials searching for answers
Robert BarronThe Daily News
Saturday, January 22, 2011
CREDIT: Dead herring were found washed ashore this week north of Boat Harbour in Nanaimo.Large numbers of dead herring that washed ashore this week on a beach in Cedar has both fishery officials and local fishermen looking for answers.
Will Meeks, who works close to Cedar's North Beach where the fish washed ashore, said he knew something was amiss when he saw unusually large numbers of birds congregating on the beach on Thursday morning.
He said he was surprised to find "thousands" of dead herring washed ashore. It's a scene he can't recall ever seeing before on local beaches. Meeks said the dead herring appear to be localized to North Beach because he and friends checked nearby beaches and found nothing similar.
Lisa Mijacika, a spokeswoman with the department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said DFO officers are being sent to North Beach to determine what killed so many herring.
Paul Kershaw, a commercial herring fisherman, speculated that the fish could have ended up in an area of the ocean close to the beach that was low in oxygen, which could have caused the deaths.
"There may have been thousands of dead herring in this incident, but there are usually billions of herring in the biomass," Kershaw said. "However, this will obviously be a big concern if lots more show up dead on the beaches."
Herring found in the Strait of Georgia spend about half of the year feeding in the waters west of Vancouver Island before migrating back to the strait in October and November where they congregate into big schools as a means of defence against predators like salmon, birds and whales.
They begin to spawn in early March and it's during this brief period in their lifecycles, which usually lasts just four or five days, that the annual herring fishing season takes place.
Mijacika said there is an ongoing small herring fishery for food and bait in the Strait of Georgia and it's possible that a net from one of the six boats taking part could have broken open, causing the incident.
"However, we have monitors and observers on these boats and no such incident has been reported at this time," she said. "It appears to be a very rare occurrence and we hope to know more once our officers have a look."
Discovery has fishery officials searching for answers
Robert BarronThe Daily News
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Will Meeks, who works close to Cedar's North Beach where the fish washed ashore, said he knew something was amiss when he saw unusually large numbers of birds congregating on the beach on Thursday morning.
He said he was surprised to find "thousands" of dead herring washed ashore. It's a scene he can't recall ever seeing before on local beaches. Meeks said the dead herring appear to be localized to North Beach because he and friends checked nearby beaches and found nothing similar.
Lisa Mijacika, a spokeswoman with the department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said DFO officers are being sent to North Beach to determine what killed so many herring.
Paul Kershaw, a commercial herring fisherman, speculated that the fish could have ended up in an area of the ocean close to the beach that was low in oxygen, which could have caused the deaths.
"There may have been thousands of dead herring in this incident, but there are usually billions of herring in the biomass," Kershaw said. "However, this will obviously be a big concern if lots more show up dead on the beaches."
Herring found in the Strait of Georgia spend about half of the year feeding in the waters west of Vancouver Island before migrating back to the strait in October and November where they congregate into big schools as a means of defence against predators like salmon, birds and whales.
They begin to spawn in early March and it's during this brief period in their lifecycles, which usually lasts just four or five days, that the annual herring fishing season takes place.
Mijacika said there is an ongoing small herring fishery for food and bait in the Strait of Georgia and it's possible that a net from one of the six boats taking part could have broken open, causing the incident.
"However, we have monitors and observers on these boats and no such incident has been reported at this time," she said. "It appears to be a very rare occurrence and we hope to know more once our officers have a look."
