Dear Volunteers, It is time! The fourth annual Herring Count will begin on Tuesday, April 1st at the fish ladder on Elm Street in Kingston. Volunteers are needed for three time periods a day, with 3 shifts per time period, seven days a week. Shifts are for ten minute intervals, and done anytime between 7:00 to 11:00 am; 11:00 am to 3:00 pm; and from 3:00 to 7:00 pm. We are able to accommodate any volunteers' availability for this project, whether daily, weekly, or one time only. Training sessions for fish counting will be held on Saturday, March 29th at 11:00 am, and Monday March 31st at 6:30 pm at the Elm Street dam. There is parking across the street at Sampson Park. If you cannot make either session we will try to accommodate you. Please email fish@jonesriver.org with your availability along with any questions or concerns that you may have. For those of you who are new to this program, and as a refresher to those who continue to volunteer, below is some information on why this project is so important: JRWA organized its first ever herring count in 2005, and we are committed to making this an annual ritual. The real tough part—there were very few fish. In fifty days of counting (5 to 9 10-minute sessions a day) we counted a total of fifty fish between April and June. This is a time when herring in the river should be countless going up the fish ladder at Elm Street. Our results and those of others throughout the region and the east coast signaled a clear warning that the river herring populations are crashing. This prompted closures –meaning the prohibition of taking of any herring, for any reason—throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. While this is not the result we were looking for, the findings were a dramatic call to attend to the habitat issues and help the populations recover. Even if pickled herring is not your thing—one has to appreciate that all the larger fish in the ocean rely on the small, once abundant bait fish, for their sustenance. No herring means starvation for our favored species such as striped bass. Based on this work, JRWA joined with others to urge the ban on taking herring, and through WAA, applied for grants to help educate the general public regarding the seriousness of the situation. We are also increasing our efforts locally to develop a watershed plan to remove obstacles to fish migration and spawning. Thank you for your interest and assistance! |