by Lynn Oertel

It might be hard to believe with all the snow and cold of this winter, but soon we will start our annual Herring Count. The Count starts April 1 and ends May 31. The Count is done on the bridge at the outflow from Great Herring Pond located along Sandy Pond Road in Bourne, next to the boat launch. (This is where the Monument River meets Great Herring Pond – see map below for details.) We are always in need of volunteers to help us count herring!!

Monitoring herring as they begin their annual migration is important to assess and has implications for our environment. River herring provide feed for many fish and other wildlife in our state. The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries uses herring data from about 50 counting stations to make important observations and plan future management strategies.

Counts are done every day from 7am – 7pm. It takes about 15 minutes of your time to perform the 10-minute count and then document your findings. We welcome back our experienced counters and at the same time, hope to welcome new ones! Help is available for new counters
and it’s easy! How often you count is up to you but the more visual counts we document, the better. We have a rather long counting period so if you have plans to be away for a week or more, that’s no problem.

According to John Sheppard of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, our volunteers documented a record number of herring last year. The raw visual count was 1,702 herring. However, this visual count is analyzed further to calculate the relative index of abundance of the river herring spawning run. When analyzed, the estimate was 57, 832 herring passing through at our counting site. He said, “It’s been a very good year overall and hopefully the returns will continue to improve next year.”

Let’s see if we can beat that!

To volunteer or ask questions, contact Lynn Oertel, lboertel@comcast.net, or 774-217-3178. Your preference for a counting time (day of week and time) can be emailed to me now. I will confirm with you and I will also send out a general sign-up calendar in March. There must at least 10 minutes between consecutive counts. I will assign hourly blocks of time in order to provide flexibility for you to arrive for your counting time.

You can park in the boat launch parking lot (144 Herring Pond Rd, Bourne, MA 02532) located at
the corner of Herring Pond Rd and Sandy Pond Rd.

We store a bucket at 1 Black Pond Rd, Bourne. This is where the documentation is completed
and stored.