Herring and the Herring Alliance need our help.

Greg Wells of the Herring Alliance was kind enough to come down to our annual meeting and give a great talk about the history, status, and future of river herring.  Those of you who attended know how urgent the need is to protect these fish.  You also saw the massive task that the Herring Alliance has in front of it in order to affect positive change.  This is the big scale stuff that our small organization can't handle on it's own.  So we rely on them to do the heavy lifting and they rely on us to back them up.  Greg sent us an email today asking for some of that back up.  I can't improve much on his wording so I'll just let his note speak for itself. You should feel free to contact them or us if you want more information or just to talk it over.  We will be following up as an organization, but support from individuals is also key.

Hi Pine and Alex,

Thought I’d send you an quick update on our herring efforts and let you know about the open comment period and hearings scheduled on Amendment 5 to the Atlantic Herring FMP.  Comments on the proposed management options are being accepting now through April 9, and seven public hearings are coming up, including one near you on March 27^th. Final decisions on management measures – including protections for river herring – will be made in June.

Leading up to these final decisions, there are a number of ways JRWA and your members can help ensure adequate protections for river herring are voted through and ultimately approved for implementation (hearing attendance/testimony, sign-on letter, op-eds in local papers, encouraging elected officials to weigh in on the process, etc.). I’ll keep you posted as these opportunities come up. In the meantime, please help us spread the word about the upcoming hearings (link below). It would be really great to have you or others in your community at a hearing to let Council members know that groups like yours are putting in a lot of time and effort to restore river herring runs, that we need them to support these efforts by establishing protections for these fish in federal waters. I can provide you some talking points, and if you or anyone is interested I’d be happy to meet up before the main event.

  

Thanks,

Greg

blog post – http://www.herringalliance.org/blog/180-speak-out-to-help-protect-river-herring

public hearing document – http://nefmc.org/herring/planamen/draft_a5/public%20hearings/Final.Amendment.5.Public.Hearing.Document.Feb.28.2012.pdf