Tiny Herring Bones Provide Information about Future runs

While fishers crowd area bridges to take advantage of this year's herring run, the health of future runs is the focus of UVic researchers. Dr. Kevin Telmer, of UVic's school of earth and ocean sciences, and master's student Michael Sanborn, are studying herring earbones taken from fish off the eastern and western shores of Vancouver Island last summer, to determine whether stocks of herring born on one island coast mix with stocks born on the other. "If they mix, then the total stock of herring on the west coast may be more robust and able to rebound from depletions than if the stocks remain separate," says Telmer. "This information is essential for managing the Pacific herring fishery." To tell the different stocks apart the chemistry of herring earbones, known as otoliths, is analyzed. "By analyzing the layers in an otolith, the environment that a fish passed through can be reconstructed," adds Telmer. "It's like chemical telemetry."

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