Towards a Comprehensive Strategy to Recover River Herring on the Atlantic Seaboard: Lessons from Pacific Salmon

A comprehensive, linked freshwater and marine approach to restoring river herring is proposed, informed by a “life-cycle” strategy for recovery of an Endangered Pacific salmon species that identifies range-wide recovery actions to abate threats to all life stages. Protecting and strengthening core populations, combined with marine strategies is likely key to recovery of the species at scale. A case study is presented from the Taunton River, a ~1300 sq km watershed in Massachusetts (USA) that hosts one of the largest river herring runs in New England. This watershed and its river herring populations possess multiple characteristics that indicate resilience and thus it could be an example of a river herring core habitat, critical for recovery of the species at scale.  A watershed-wide protection and restoration initiative is underway.  Site-based strategies like dam removal are linked with policy efforts designed to protect and improve connectivity, flow and water quality. These watershed-based strategies are linked with regional scale research and fisheries management to set sustainable directed harvest targets and reduce bycatch of river herring in ocean fisheries.  Core habitats for river herring need to be identified rangewide and investments in those places prioritized to secure resilient source populations.