Pacific herring
Encyclopedia
The Pacific herring, Clupea pallasii, is a species
of the herring
family associated with the Pacific Ocean
environment of North America
and northeast Asia
. This species is a silvery fish
with unspined fin
s and a deeply forked caudal fin. The distribution is widely along the California
coast from Baja California
north to Alaska
and the Bering Sea
; in Asia the distribution is south to Japan
. Clupea pallasii is sometimes considered a keystone species
because of its very high productivity and interactions with a large number of predators
and prey. Pacific herring spawn
in variable seasons, but often in the early part of the year in intertidal and sub-tidal environments, commonly on eelgrass
or other submerged vegetation
; however, they do not die after spawning, but can breed in successive years. According to government sources, the Pacific herring fishery
collapsed in the year 1993, and is slowly recovering to commercial viability in several North American stock areas. The species is named for Peter Simon Pallas
, a noted German
naturalist
and explorer.
s of the species Clupea pallasii manifest a bluish-green dorsal area with silver-white sides and bellies; they are otherwise unmarked. The silvery color derives from guanine
crystals embedded in their laterals, leading to an effective camouflage
phenomenon. There is a single dorsal fin located mid-body and a deeply forked tail-fin. Their bodies are compressed laterally, and ventral scales protrude in a somewhat serrated fashion. Unlike other genus members, they have no scales on heads or gill
s; moreover, their scales are large and easy to extract. This species of fish may attain a length of 45 centimeters in exceptional cases and weigh up to 550 grams, but a typical adult size is closer to 33 centimeters. The fish interior is quite bony with oily flesh.
This species has no teeth on the jaw
line, but some are exhibited on the vomer
. Pacific herring have an unusual retina
l design that allows filter feeding in extremely dim lighting environments. This species is capable of rapid vertical motion, due to the existence of a complex nerve receptor system design that connects to the gas bladder
.
. Along the North American Pacific Coast, some of the principal areas are San Francisco Bay
, Richardson Bay
, Tomales Bay
and Humboldt Bay. Adult males and females make their way from the open ocean to these bays around November or December, although in the far north of the range, these dates may be somewhat later. Conditions that trigger spawning are not altogether clear, but after spending weeks congregating in the deeper channels, both males and females will begin to enter shallower inter-tidal or sub-tidal waters. Submerged vegetation, especially eelgrass, is a preferred substrate for oviposition
. A single female may lay as many as 20,000 eggs
in one spawn following ventral contact with submerged substrates. However, the juvenile
survival rate is only about one resultant adult per ten thousand eggs, due to high predation by numerous other species.
The precise staging of spawning is not understood, although some researchers suggest the male initiates the process by release of milt
, which has a pheromone
that stimulates the female to begin oviposition. The behavior seems to be collective so that an entire school may spawn in the period of a few hours, producing an egg density of up to 6,000,000 eggs per square meter. The fertilized spherical
eggs, measuring 1.2 to 1.5 millimeters in diameter, incubate for approximately ten days in estuarine waters that are about 10 degrees Celsius. Eggs and juveniles are subject to heavy predation.
, the total North American Pacific herring fishery collapsed in 1993, and is slowly recovering with active management by North American resource managers. In various sub-areas the Pacific herring fishery collapsed at slightly differing times; for example, the Pacific herring fishery in Richardson Bay
collapsed in 1983. The species has been re-appearing in harvestable numbers in a number of North American fisheries including San Francisco Bay, Richardson Bay, Tomales Bay, Sitka Sound
, Half Moon Bay
and Humboldt Bay. In other areas, such as Auke Bay, which, in the late 1970's was the largest harvestable stock of herring in Alaska, the species remains severely depleted.
On April 2, 2007, the Juneau group of the Sierra Club submitted a petition to list Pacific herring in the Lynn Canal, Alaska, area as a threatened or endangered distinct population segment
under the criteria of the U.S. Endangered Species Act
(ESA).. On April 11, 2008, that petition was denied because the Lynn Canal population was not found to qualify as a DPS. However, the National Marine Fisheries Service
did announce would be initiating a status review for a wider Southeast Alaska DPS of Pacific herring that includes the Lynn Canal population. The Southeast Alaska DPS of Pacific herring extends from Dixon Entrance northward to Cape Fairweather and Icy Point and includes all Pacific herring stocks in Southeast Alaska.
Pacific herring are currently harvested commercially for salmon bait and for roe. Past commercial uses included fish oil and fish meal.
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of the herring
Herring
Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...
family associated with the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
environment of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and northeast Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
. This species is a silvery fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
with unspined fin
Fin
A fin is a surface used for stability and/or to produce lift and thrust or to steer while traveling in water, air, or other fluid media, . The first use of the word was for the limbs of fish, but has been extended to include other animal limbs and man-made devices...
s and a deeply forked caudal fin. The distribution is widely along the California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
coast from Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
north to Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and the Bering Sea
Bering Sea
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....
; in Asia the distribution is south to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Clupea pallasii is sometimes considered a keystone species
Keystone species
A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its environment relative to its abundance. Such species play a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and...
because of its very high productivity and interactions with a large number of predators
Predation
In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey . Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of its prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through consumption...
and prey. Pacific herring spawn
Spawn (biology)
Spawn refers to the eggs and sperm released or deposited, usually into water, by aquatic animals. As a verb, spawn refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, also called spawning...
in variable seasons, but often in the early part of the year in intertidal and sub-tidal environments, commonly on eelgrass
Zostera
Zostera is a small genus of widely distributed seagrass, commonly called marine eelgrass or simply eelgrass . The genus Zostera contains sixteen species.-Ecology:Zostera is found on sandy substrates or in estuaries submerged or partially floating...
or other submerged vegetation
Vegetation
Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
; however, they do not die after spawning, but can breed in successive years. According to government sources, the Pacific herring fishery
Fishery
Generally, a fishery is an entity engaged in raising or harvesting fish which is determined by some authority to be a fishery. According to the FAO, a fishery is typically defined in terms of the "people involved, species or type of fish, area of water or seabed, method of fishing, class of boats,...
collapsed in the year 1993, and is slowly recovering to commercial viability in several North American stock areas. The species is named for Peter Simon Pallas
Peter Simon Pallas
Peter Simon Pallas was a German zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia.- Life and work :Pallas was born in Berlin, the son of Professor of Surgery Simon Pallas. He studied with private tutors and took an interest in natural history, later attending the University of Halle and the University...
, a noted German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
and explorer.
Morphology
OrganismOrganism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
s of the species Clupea pallasii manifest a bluish-green dorsal area with silver-white sides and bellies; they are otherwise unmarked. The silvery color derives from guanine
Guanine
Guanine is one of the four main nucleobases found in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, the others being adenine, cytosine, and thymine . In DNA, guanine is paired with cytosine. With the formula C5H5N5O, guanine is a derivative of purine, consisting of a fused pyrimidine-imidazole ring system with...
crystals embedded in their laterals, leading to an effective camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
phenomenon. There is a single dorsal fin located mid-body and a deeply forked tail-fin. Their bodies are compressed laterally, and ventral scales protrude in a somewhat serrated fashion. Unlike other genus members, they have no scales on heads or gill
Gill
A gill is a respiratory organ found in many aquatic organisms that extracts dissolved oxygen from water, afterward excreting carbon dioxide. The gills of some species such as hermit crabs have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are kept moist...
s; moreover, their scales are large and easy to extract. This species of fish may attain a length of 45 centimeters in exceptional cases and weigh up to 550 grams, but a typical adult size is closer to 33 centimeters. The fish interior is quite bony with oily flesh.
This species has no teeth on the jaw
Jaw
The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term jaws is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serving to open and close it and is part of the body plan of...
line, but some are exhibited on the vomer
Vomer
The vomer is one of the unpaired facial bones of the skull. It is located in the midsagittal line, and articulates with the sphenoid, the ethmoid, the left and right palatine bones, and the left and right maxillary bones.-Biology:...
. Pacific herring have an unusual retina
Retina
The vertebrate retina is a light-sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye. The optics of the eye create an image of the visual world on the retina, which serves much the same function as the film in a camera. Light striking the retina initiates a cascade of chemical and electrical...
l design that allows filter feeding in extremely dim lighting environments. This species is capable of rapid vertical motion, due to the existence of a complex nerve receptor system design that connects to the gas bladder
Gas bladder
The swim bladder, gas bladder, fish maw or air bladder is an internal gas-filled organ that contributes to the ability of a fish to control its buoyancy, and thus to stay at the current water depth without having to waste energy in swimming...
.
Life cycle
Pacific herring prefer spawning locations in sheltered bays and estuariesEstuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
. Along the North American Pacific Coast, some of the principal areas are San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
, Richardson Bay
Richardson Bay
Richardson Bay is a shallow, ecologically rich arm of San Francisco Bay, managed under a Joint Powers Agency of four Northern California cities. The Richardson Bay Sanctuary was acquired in the early 1960s by the National Audubon Society. The bay was named for William A...
, Tomales Bay
Tomales Bay
Tomales Bay is a long narrow inlet of the Pacific Ocean in Marin County in northern California in the United States. It is approximately 15 miles long and averages nearly 1.0 miles wide, effectively separating the Point Reyes Peninsula from the mainland of Marin County. It is located...
and Humboldt Bay. Adult males and females make their way from the open ocean to these bays around November or December, although in the far north of the range, these dates may be somewhat later. Conditions that trigger spawning are not altogether clear, but after spending weeks congregating in the deeper channels, both males and females will begin to enter shallower inter-tidal or sub-tidal waters. Submerged vegetation, especially eelgrass, is a preferred substrate for oviposition
Oviposition
Oviposition is the process of laying eggs by oviparous animals.Some arthropods, for example, lay their eggs with an organ called the ovipositor.Fish , amphibians, reptiles, birds and monetremata also lay eggs....
. A single female may lay as many as 20,000 eggs
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
in one spawn following ventral contact with submerged substrates. However, the juvenile
Juvenile (organism)
A juvenile is an individual organism that has not yet reached its adult form, sexual maturity or size. Juveniles sometimes look very different from the adult form, particularly in terms of their colour...
survival rate is only about one resultant adult per ten thousand eggs, due to high predation by numerous other species.
The precise staging of spawning is not understood, although some researchers suggest the male initiates the process by release of milt
Milt
Milt is the seminal fluid of fish, mollusks, and certain other water-dwelling animals who reproduce by spraying this fluid, which contains the sperm, onto roe .-Milt as food:...
, which has a pheromone
Pheromone
A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting outside the body of the secreting individual to impact the behavior of the receiving individual...
that stimulates the female to begin oviposition. The behavior seems to be collective so that an entire school may spawn in the period of a few hours, producing an egg density of up to 6,000,000 eggs per square meter. The fertilized spherical
Sphere
A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in two dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance r from the center point...
eggs, measuring 1.2 to 1.5 millimeters in diameter, incubate for approximately ten days in estuarine waters that are about 10 degrees Celsius. Eggs and juveniles are subject to heavy predation.
Conservation and commercial use
Historically the Pacific herring has been an important species, due to its productive abilities to generate significant species biomass. Due to overfishingOverfishing
Overfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans....
, the total North American Pacific herring fishery collapsed in 1993, and is slowly recovering with active management by North American resource managers. In various sub-areas the Pacific herring fishery collapsed at slightly differing times; for example, the Pacific herring fishery in Richardson Bay
Richardson Bay
Richardson Bay is a shallow, ecologically rich arm of San Francisco Bay, managed under a Joint Powers Agency of four Northern California cities. The Richardson Bay Sanctuary was acquired in the early 1960s by the National Audubon Society. The bay was named for William A...
collapsed in 1983. The species has been re-appearing in harvestable numbers in a number of North American fisheries including San Francisco Bay, Richardson Bay, Tomales Bay, Sitka Sound
Sitka Sound
Sitka Sound is a body of water near the city of Sitka, Alaska. It is bordered by Baranof Island to the south and the northeast, by Kruzof Island to the northwest and by the Pacific Ocean to the southwest...
, Half Moon Bay
Half Moon Bay
Half Moon Bay is a city in San Mateo County, CaliforniaHalf Moon Bay may also refer to:- Geographic features :* Half Moon Bay , a bay on the San Mateo County Coast of California...
and Humboldt Bay. In other areas, such as Auke Bay, which, in the late 1970's was the largest harvestable stock of herring in Alaska, the species remains severely depleted.
On April 2, 2007, the Juneau group of the Sierra Club submitted a petition to list Pacific herring in the Lynn Canal, Alaska, area as a threatened or endangered distinct population segment
Distinct population segment
A distinct population segment is the smallest division of a taxonomic species permitted to be protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Species, as defined in the Act for listing purposes, is a taxonomic species or subspecies of plant or animal, or in the case of vertebrate species, a...
under the criteria of the U.S. Endangered Species Act
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...
(ESA).. On April 11, 2008, that petition was denied because the Lynn Canal population was not found to qualify as a DPS. However, the National Marine Fisheries Service
National Marine Fisheries Service
The National Marine Fisheries Service is a United States federal agency. A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Commerce, NMFS is responsible for the stewardship and management of the nation's living marine resources and their habitat within the...
did announce would be initiating a status review for a wider Southeast Alaska DPS of Pacific herring that includes the Lynn Canal population. The Southeast Alaska DPS of Pacific herring extends from Dixon Entrance northward to Cape Fairweather and Icy Point and includes all Pacific herring stocks in Southeast Alaska.
Pacific herring are currently harvested commercially for salmon bait and for roe. Past commercial uses included fish oil and fish meal.
External links
- Alaska Fish and Game species writeup
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service species profile: Pacific herring
- Abundance, age, sex, and size statistics for Pacific herring in the Togiak district of Bristol Bay, 2004 by Chuck Brazil. Hosted by the Alaska State Publications Program.
- Kodiak management area herring sac roe fishery harvest strategy for the 2007 season / by Jeff Wadle, Geoff Spalinger, and Joe Dinnocenzo. Hosted by the Alaska State Publications Program.