North Beach herring deaths 'rare occurrence'
DFO officers, fishermen look for answers after thousands of fish wash ashore
By Robert Baron, Postmedia NewsJanuary 24, 2011
Large numbers of dead herring that washed ashore this week on a beach south of Nanaimo have both fishery officials and local fishermen looking for answers.
Will Meeks, who works near 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 Thursday morning.
He said he was surprised to find "thousands" of dead herring washed ashore, a scene he can't recall ever seeing before on local beaches.
Meeks said the dead herring appear to localized to North Beach because he and his friends checked nearby beaches and found nothing similar.
Lisa Mijacika, a spokeswoman with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said DFO officers are being sent to North Beach to determine what killed the fish. Paul Kershaw, a commercial herring fisherman, speculated 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 the year feeding in the waters west of Vancouver Island before migrating back to the strait in October and November. They then congregate into big schools as a means of defence against predators like salmon, birds and whales.
The fish begin to spawn in early March and it's during this brief period in their life cycles, 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."
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