Decimation of Herring Stocks: From Abundance to Conservation Concern

Once abundant in Irish waters, overfishing and climate change have decimated herring numbers, affecting not just the fishing industry but the Northeast Atlantic ecosystem. For a small fish, herring has had a big impact on human societies of the North Atlantic.

It was “the most remarkable of fish”, according to James Travis Jenkins in his 1927 book, The Herring and the Herring Fisheries – captured and consumed by the first peoples to live in coastal settlements and “the only fish which has been the cause of several wars”. Jenkins enthused that the fishery “has been pursued from time immemorial in the same waters and at the same time of year with ever-increasing catching power without in the least degree showing any signs of diminution due to overfishing. In fact the fishery, in spite of its being easily the greatest in the world, is still capable of enormous expansion.” He went so far as to ascribe British maritime supremacy at the time “to a greater extent than most people suspect, dependent on our herring fisheries”. The key to this great success was down to the fish’s biology and ecology. Its flesh is firm and oily, ideal for salting or pickling, and so easily preserved. A calorie-rich, protein-packed, tasty staple that could travel long distances without spoiling. And it was abundant, really abundant.New government should ensure proposed LNG plant in Shannon estuary does not proceed, Friends of the Earth saysProgress and success are not the same thing when it comes to climate action One account from Scotland from 1780 recounts how “a large shoal of herrings appeared, accompanied with vast numbers of whales and porpoises beating the water into a foam for several miles”. This extended around the Irish coast. In the late 1800s it was reported that Lough Swilly had enough herring “for all the boats of Europe” and that they gathered in such dense shoals that it was “difficult to row through them”

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