Hundreds of herring are hatching in the Harbour thanks to the efforts of the community and the Pender Harbour Rotary Club.
The small feed fish have been dwindling in numbers, which in turn negatively affects fish stocks like salmon that use them as a source of food.
"We do get some herring coming into Pender Harbour and in around the area, but if we can increase the number, then you start increasing the success of the salmon spawning, you maybe bring dolphin around. You sort of feed the whole chain of the ocean basically," said Pender Harbour Rotary Club president-elect Jon Paine.
In an effort to help raise the herring population in the Harbour, the Rotary Club spearheaded a herring spawning program this year. In December, they put down herring curtains in the waters of Garden Bay, Bargain Bay, Gerrans Bay and Irvines Landing. Three of the four curtains now have thousands of herring eggs laid on them, with most of them already hatched and on their way to maturity.
All but the curtain in Irvines Landing saw success this year, but Paine thinks it may be due to the curtain being laid too early and building up algae, or perhaps it was not a good location.
"This is a bit of an experiment this year, and now we know where we had success and we know the timing a bit better," he said. "We didn't need to put them in so early. We could have put them in in March and they would have stayed cleaner of algae, and that would have been less work. We were going down and scrubbing them every two or three weeks towards the end."
The idea for the project came after the Rotary Club heard a presentation in November from the Squamish Streamkeepers. The Streamkeepers found that all of the herring eggs laid on pilings underneath the Squamish terminal were dead. They guessed it was the creosote on the pilings that was at fault.
"So they started wrapping the pilings with different materials, and they found that landscape fabric was one of the best. Then that next year they found, instead of nearly 100 per cent mortality rate, they had nearly 100 per cent success rate in the eggs reaching maturity and hatching," Paine said.
The Pender Harbour Rotary Club wanted to try their own version of the technique and decided to submerge curtains of landscape fabric in areas thought to be herring spawning sites. Four curtains six metres long and two metres deep were set up by Rotarians and other interested community members eager to see if their efforts would help.
"It was a project that cost us virtually nothing," Paine said. "The Department of Fisheries and Oceans donated a roll of fabric to us and then fishermen in the area donated floats and rope and whatever we needed, so it cost very little to do the whole thing, and everybody's very enthusiastic about it. It's a good project."
They hope to see the return of herring spawned this year in three years time.
"It takes three years for a herring to mature enough to come back and spawn again. After that, then they do it year after year. Unlike salmon, they don't die each year. They just keep going. They can reach 12 to 15 years old," Paine said.
While they are waiting for the first herring babies to return full grown to spawn, they will ensure the herring curtains are set up for next year's visitors.
If you would like to help with the herring spawning project, you can contact Paine at 604-883-2593.
