make a large impression on everyone,
including tiny fish. It was intense – and
this was just one of about six riots of
wildlife within our view.
Well, I knew what was going on,
but maybe you haven’t experienced
this, so here’s what these big events are
all about.
Pacific herring are little fish, and if
you’re a little fish, you can gain odds
for prolonging your life if you stick
together. A bunch of little fish can
become a very big looking fishy thing if
you hang out together – think teenagers
hanging out! One teenager – no big
deal, but a half a million of them and
Herring Ball “Happening”
you get Woodstock. That’s the herring
teenager’s idea too, but there are lots of
bigger critters out there trying to dine
Eye opening experiences are all
on them, so they don’t have a moment’s
around us if we are aware.
peace. And while sticking together
can increase your odds of individual
Larry Eifert
survival, it also announces to everyone
where you’re hanging out.
An amazingly nice afternoon! You even a bunch of Mergansers were all Most Puget Sound herring spawn
know, “nice” – in Puget Sound that’s bobbing about, diving, grabbing at from late January to early April,
the hit-or-miss day that can happen others nearby and generally making a depositing transparent sticky eggs on
at any time during the five months “happening” as I used to say 40 years eelgrass and marine algae in shallow
between March and the first of July; a ago. The gulls couldn’t dive very deeply, water, mostly in quiet bays and
season that alternates almost daily with being very buoyant-birds, so they just estuaries. Each female deposits between
“crummy wet.” With temperatures gave it their best, plunging from about 20,000 and 40,000 eggs a year, and it’s
hovering around bitter cold since last five feet into the water and grabbing these sheer numbers that insure the
October, a nice day meant sailing. So at nothing. “Mine, mine, mine, mine!” herring’s survival. These sticky eggs
we went! Get the sail covers off Sea they all yelled continuously. cling to eelgrass stems, and, after about
Witch. Back her out. Head down the It was a riot and as we approached, 14 days, hatch into small, transparent
channel and out into Port Townsend none of the birds seemed to care we larvae about a half-inch long. The little
Bay. Then, get the sails up, sheet’r were there. Then a slow, huge and critters are at the mercy of currents as
home, and away we went to the north powerful swirl of water nearby showed they drift about, but the larvae that
out into Admiralty Inlet, watching the something else was going on below the survive grow until after three months
freighters and navy ships to-ing and surface. Unseen until now, a sea lion when they are about 1½” long, when
fro-ing. A warm northwesterly wind was there as well, circling up from they metamorphose into adult fish,
was gently spilling out from the hills of below to concentrate the herring ball eventually growing to become six to
Port Townsend and into the bay. It was close to the surface. A 650-pound, nine inches long. Think sardines in that
tee-shirt weather. 8-foot long sea lion can square, little can, but bigger. Most of
We hadn’t made it to the Mid us know Pacific herring from bait shop
Channel Bank when ahead we could freezers, where we see them lined up in
see a great mass of moving birds. blue Styrofoam trays.
Actually, there were several masses In their second or third
of birds, all wheeling and spinning, year, herring normally return
diving and making a ruckus. to their original spawning
“Herring balls,” we both said grounds. Unlike salmon,
at the same time as we nodded spawners don’t normally die
in unison. The birds were going but continue to spawn in
crazy. About 50 Glaucous- successive years, although
winged gulls were in each most don’t make it past five
group, and more flying in as years of age. A few may live to
fast as they could from other the ripe old age of 15. However,
areas nearby. Cormorants, it’s been estimated that, for every
Rhino Auklets, a few 10,000 herring eggs, one adult will
Pigeon Guillemots and Pacific Herring live long enough to return to spawn,
48° No r t h , Se p t e m b e r 2009 pa g e 48
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