15 Sep 2003 - First World pelagics conference will be held in Cape Town, Oct 27-28, 2003, with a variety of pelagic topics, top speakers and back-to-back to the Fish Africa Trade Show, reports co-organizer Fishing News International. More information is available at www.heighway.com.

19 May 2003 - The website of the EU-project Westher was launched today. It is mainly set up to ease communication between project partners. Clupea.net is the host site for the project site: see www.clupea.net/westher!

25 Apr 2003 - ICES Northern Pelagic and Blue Whiting WG (NPBWWG) had problems deciding upon the model to use for the Norwegian Spring Spawner Assessment. All models, however, show a decrease in spawning stock biomass for this biggest herring stock in the North-East Atlantic. Data will be available after the spring session of the ICES Advisory Committee on Fisheries Management (ACFM) in early June.

20 Mar 2003 - North Sea herring continues to recover, Western Baltic herring stable, indicate recent assessments of the respective ICES Working Group. At the latest meeting of the ICES "Herring Assessment Working Group for the Area south of 62°N" (HAWG) in Copenhagen/DK, 09-20 Mar 2003, the status of 11 herring and sprat stocks has been assessed. The three biggest ones are:
• North Sea Autumn Spawners - continue to recover from low spawning stock biomass levels in the mid-1990s and are now well inside safe biological limits; total allowable catches for herring caught in the North Sea 2003 have been raised by 50 %; good recruitment is expected to support further increase in spawning stock biomass over the next year.
• Western Baltic Spring Spawners - the stock size is currently at a low level but appears to be stable
• West of Scotland (VIaN) herring - stock size is rather high and above any proposed reference point
Detailed information will be published in late May following the internal review by the ICES Advisory Committee for Fisheries Management. A public review of the North Sea Autumn Spawning herring assessment is planned for early summer by the North Sea Commission Fisheries Partnership.

20 Jan 2003 - ICES Planning Group on Herring Surveys aims at modernising important North Sea herring acoustic survey: The ICES PGHERS met last week at the FRS Marine Lab Aberdeen, UK, to collate larvae and acoustic survey data collected during the last year, and to plan future surveys. The data, which will be delivered to the Herring Assessment WG in March, demonstrate that North Sea herring continues to recover from the low biomass values in the mid-1990ies. The Group further decided to adapt the survey strategy for the annual acoustic survey in the North Sea, Skagerrak/Kattegat and West of Scotland, which delivers the most important fishery independent biomass index for the North Sea herring assessment. So far, different research vessels cover distinct areas with a more or less similar intensity. In a few years, the survey should consist of interlaced transects with sampling intensities proportional to assessment relevance.
The next 2-3 yrs will be used to explore different approaches to this goal and to further standardize survey methods. In 2003, the overlap areas between different vessels will be greatly increased, specifically in areas with high herring abundance or variance. Further, one vessel will decrease the sampling intensity in it’s area and try to reach the southern distribution limit for sprat in the channel, to verify if the survey can also be used for a sprat assessment in the future.

04 Jan 2003 - EU-project Westher on stock separation of herring west of the British isles finally funded: The DG Fish of the EU Commission informed applicants today that the project Westher will finally be funded for 3 yrs from Jan 1st, 2003 on. Westher ist the last project to be funded within the 5th framework programme, and the deadline for application was as early as Oct 2001. Participants – the FRS Marine Lab Aberdeen (coordination), University of Aberdeen, University of Liverpool with different branches, University of Cork, the Irish Marine Institute and the Bundesforschungsanstalt für Fischerei, Hamburg – will now have to set up sampling schemes immediately as the fishing season in some of the areas to be sampled starts in 4 weeks.

14 Jun 2002 - A workshop on herring age reading and determination of spawning time was held at the Danish Inst Fisheries Research, Charlottenlund, during last week. The meeting aimed at reaching higher agreement in age and spawning time determination among the different institutes, which are either involved in one of the ICES herring working or planning groups (and delivering age-structured data to the herring assessments), or in the EU project Hergen.

07 Jun 2002 - Some personal news: Tomas Gröhsler, herring scientist at the Rostock, Germany, based Inst Baltic Sea Fisheries and one of the initiators of the clupea-website, is going to get married today! Congrats!

30 May 2002 - The ICES Advisory Commitee on Fisheries Management (ACFM) reviewed the 3 different working group reports dealing with herring stocks in European waters and gave scientific advice for herring catches in the next year(s). Updated information on the state of the stocks assessed by ICES will soon be available on this site.

25 Mar 2002 - The annual ICES Herring Assessment Working Group (HAWG) for the area south of 62°N has met during the last two weeks in Copenhagen. According to their assessments, most of the herring stocks in the area covered are stable or recovering. North Sea Autumn Spawning herring has obviously increased the spawning stock biomass significantly (due to good recruitment) and might now be within safe biological limits - 5 yrs after the implementation of an emergency plan. The group agreed on an assessment for Western Baltic Spring Spawners, for the first time since this stock was defined in the late 80ies. Detailed information on all stocks will be available here shortly after the review process has been finalised (end of May).

02 Jan 2001 - A number of Agreed Records and the EU Council Regulation setting the TACs for Community waters have been published. The herring-related parts are reproduced here.

14 Dec 2001 - The ICES Planning Group for Herring Surveys (PGHERS) met in Hamburg, Germany, from Dec 10th through 14th, 2001, to collate data of recent herring and sprat surveys in the North Sea, West of Scotland, the Skagerrak/Kattegat and the Western Baltic, and to plan next year's surveys. Read more...

09 Nov 2001 - 2002 TACs for Atlanto-Scandian herring have been agreed during fisheries consultations between the coastal states and during the last NEAFC meeting - they are in fact a rollover from 2001. Read more...

17 Aug 2001 - The ICES Planning Group for Surveys on Pelagic Fish in the Norwegian Sea (PGSPFN) met in Reykjavik, Iceland, to collate the results of the recent hydroacoustic survey on Atlanto-Scandian herring. Read more...

20 Jun 2001 - Have you seen our new biology page?

15 May 2001 - FAO official catch statistics for 1999 report landings of 2.4 mill. tonnes of Atlantic herring and 0.5 mill. t of Pacific herring. Herring was the third most important commercial fish species (in terms of weight), after being the second most important the year before. Read more...

08 May 2001 - The Sitka Herring Roe Fishery on Pacific herring off Alaska yielded 12'000 t of fish, worth 6 mill. USD. The season was opened only for one hour this year. Read more...

20 Mar 2001 - The ICES Herring Assessment Working Group (HAWG) for the area south of 62°N meets in Hamburg, Germany, from March 13th through 22nd, 2001, to assess the status of a number of East Atlantic stocks. Read more...

15 Dec 2000 - The ICES Planning Group for Herring Surveys (PGHERS) evaluated the recent hydroacoustic and larvae surveys during a meeting at the RIVO, IJmuiden/NL. These surveys provide the most important fishery-independent biomass index for the Assessment of herring in the North Sea, West of Scotland and in the Western Baltic. The biomass estimates demonstrate that the North Sea herring is continuously recovering.

01 Dec 2000 - The Fisheries Consultations between the European Union and Norway resulted in an agreed record for the total allowable catches in 2001 today. TACs for herring in the North Sea and in the Kattegat/Skagerrak will be kept constant at 265'000 t and 80'000 t, respectively. Read more...

15 Nov 2000 - Prices of Thames Blackwater Herring have raised by up to 50% after the fishery was certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, reports WorldFishReport today. Thames herring is currently sold for about 0.47 GBP/kg (ca. 0.80 Euro/kg; 3 GBP/stone). This driftnet fishery was the first European one that was to be awarded the MSC's eco-label in March 2000. See MSC's homepage for more info.

18 Oct 2000 - Delegations of NEAFC contracting parties signed an agreed record on Atlanto-Scandian herring management and total allowable catches for 2001 today in Skagen/DK. The catch will be limited to a total of 850'000 t, which is a 30% reduction of TAC as compared to 2000.

21 Sept 2000 - Added a summary for all herring stocks in the North-East Atlantic, showing that more than 2 million t of herring were caught in this area in 1999 and that probably more than 10 million t of adult herring lived there. Detailed data for some stocks and a list of important links was supplied as well.

01 Aug 2000 - 0-group herring found on a recent survey in Faroes waters support optimistic perspective for Norwegian Spring Spawners. Read more...

24 July 2000 - Assessment summaries and ACFM-plots for almost all other Northeast Atlantic stocks added. Minor corrections on the North Sea Autumn Spawner data. Short description of the herring larval survey in the North Sea added (see research section).

08 June 2000 - Information on the Atlanto-scandian herring complex (Icelandic Summer spawners and Norwegian Spring Spawners) was added. We also created an "assessment summary" table for the 3 stocks described so far.

31 May 2000 - The first barrel of new Matje herring has been sold today in the Netherlands for a total of 50'000 USD. The money was donated to charity organisations supporting handicapped sport. The second barrel has been sent to the Dutch football team being in a preparation camp in Switzerland for the upcoming matches (News from the Dutch teletext).

30 May 2000 - Launch of the website, now containing the almost complete structure of the site and first information on 2 selected herring stocks assessed within the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) environment:
• the North Sea herring (Autumn Spawners in the North Sea [Area IV], the Eastern Channel [Div. VIId], and the Kattegat/Skagerak [Div. IIIa])
• the Western Baltic Spring Spawning herring (in the Kattegat/Skagerak [Div. IIIa], and the Western Baltic [Sub-Div. 22-24])