Connecting the people that work on the fish that connect us all.
Once a year, millions of fish swim from the open ocean back to the communities where they were born. These communities were built on fish and the connection that exists between the ocean and people. River herring seem to swim along this connection. This River Herring Network connects managers (tribal, federal, state and local) with researchers and fishermen and other stakeholders around this important fish.
The Fish that Feeds All
River herring play a key role in freshwater and marine ecosystems as food for birds, marine mammals, and other fish; bait for the lobster fishery; fertilizer for gardens; a traditional source of food for Wabanaki people; and a delicacy enjoyed across Maine’s coastal communities.
Co-Management
Fisheries collaborative management, or co-management, is a governance structure where resource users and governments share responsibility to manage a fishery. Learn more about the roles of federal, state, and municipal government, community members, and harvesters in collaboratively stewarding the river herring fishery.
Count 2024 River Herring Runs Online
Stewards of river herring throughout the Gulf of Maine are seeking help to count fish - and you can help from anywhere with internet! Underwater imagery and crowd sourcing technology has allowed video count systems to emerge and help monitor the populations of river herring runs. The following links are three rivers in Maine and Massachusetts that have video count systems, and need your help counting:
Count river herring in the Pennamaquan River, Pembroke, ME
The Network kicked off its first Research Symposium in 2025
On January 9th, 2025, the River Herring Network held its first in-person meeting in the form of a research symposium. It was all that we could have asked for and more. With roughly 50 participants in attendance (traveling in from Connecticut, all the way to the Canadian border) there was plenty of knowledge, capacity, enthusiasm and passion in the room.
Click below to watch the presentations and read more about the day…
Contact Us
Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries and Manomet provide backbone support for the network.
Emily Farr, Manomet | efarr@manomet.org
Mike Thalhauser, Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries | mthalhauser@coastalfisheries.org