Feds Consider Cut To Catch Of Herring, A Key Food Web Fish

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Federal fishing regulators are considering a slight cut to the catch limit for Atlantic herring, a fish that is important both to the fishing industry and the ocean’s food web.

Atlantic herring are small fish that gather in schools that can number in the millions. They are a critical food source for bigger fish, seals and whales, and are important to humans as food and bait.

The National Marines Fisheries Service might reduce the catch limit by about 3 percent to about 105,000 metric tons. The proposal’s up for public comment until July 21.

The herring fishery takes place in New England and the mid-Atlantic, but is principally based in Maine and Massachusetts. It was worth a little less than $30 million in 2014, when fishermen caught 92,000 metric tons.