Tidmarsh's Herring Count

This past April and May, a dedicated group of 34 volunteers have been trekking out to two streams that run through Tidmarsh Wildlife Sanctuary in order to watch the water for ten-minute intervals for signs of herring. Over the course of this herring count season, there were 11 herring counted at the first bridge and 28 counted at the second bridge. This makes a total of 39 herring spotted at Tidmarsh this year! 

Although these numbers are relatively low compared to other more established sites, they are an improvement from last year’s numbers, where a total of 7 fish were seen at Tidmarsh over the course of the counting season. This is also the first year that herring were spotted in the newly restored freshwater stream near the entrance to the sanctuary. This is extremely exciting, as this is only the first second year this stream has been monitored, and it means some of the population has found their way to this new channel! Along with herring, counters also encountered many other critters along the way, including otters, kingfishers, hawks, and a nesting snapping turtle!

The results from this count still need to be run through models to calculated specific population estimated for this site, but all and all it has been a promising season! Thank you to all of our counters for their hard work and patience this season, who, combined, put in over 500 volunteer hours!