One of the goals of the Herring School is to identify why Pacific herring abundances have remained unpredictable and/or low despite management efforts to rebuild stocks. To understand this, Luke Rogers (Hakai Network for Coastal People Ecosystems and Management and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto) is working with fellow Herring Schoolers Anne Salomon and Margot Hessing-Lewis (Simon Fraser University), Brendan Connors (Simon Fraser University) and Martin Krkošek (University of Toronto) to do the following:
- Gather Pacific herring abundance records from resource managers
- Identify regional patterns in herring variability and decline
- Quantify the influence of human, ecological, and environmental factors on herring abundance
We have compiled abundance estimates for 17 Pacific herring stocks from San Francisco Bay, California, to Togiak Bay, Alaska. The abundance estimates from the five major stocks in British Columbia (Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii, Central Coast, West Coast Vancouver Island, and Strait of Georgia) span 63 years from 1951 to 2013. Records have been generously provided by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife.