Where have all the herring gone? 



BY KATHY HART 



Murray Nixon 



Murray Nixon knows river herring. 

 He knows how to stake a 

 pound net just off the shore to get a 

 herring to ' 'play into' ' the lead, the heart, 

 the tunnel and finally the ' 'crib,' ' where 

 it's as good as in the frying pan. 



He knows what it is to eat herring 

 three times a day and be happy that 

 he could put meat in the bellies of his 

 young 'uns. 



And he knows that the herring fish- 

 ery, the source of much of that meat 

 for several generations of Nixons, is 

 dying a slow death. 



Nixon has lived a lifetime about a 

 mile from the Chowan River. He's 

 fished herring commercially, sold it at 

 his fish house and now helps manage 

 it as a member of the N.C. Marine 

 Fisheries Commission. 



As he rakes his hat back across his 

 salt-and-pepper crew cut, he talks 

 about the fish he knows. 



"They would come in like droves of 

 blackbirds . . . play along the shoals 

 into millponds and ditches, roll around 

 among the cypress and spawn," he 

 says. 

 But no more. 



"Last year was the sorriest year we 

 ever had for herring," Nixon says 

 bitterly. 



River herring catches plummeted 

 during the last 15 years, bottoming 

 out in 1989 at a little more than 1.4 

 million pounds. In its heyday, this 

 Albemarle fishery netted more than 

 40 million pounds of river herring. 



Photos by CR Edgeiton 



"It's the runoff from farms, manu- 

 facturers and septic tanks,' ' he says. 

 ' And there's more people living on 

 the waters.' ' 



As evidence of the pollution, he 

 describes the mats of blue-green 

 algae that have coated the Chowan 

 River "like paint" during the summers 

 since the 1970s. The algae, he claims, 

 cuts off the oxygen supply to eggs 

 and young fish. 



"You got to hatch 'em to catch 

 'em," he says with a note of finality. 



And he's right. 



Charles Manooch, a research biolo- 

 gist with the National Marine Fish- 

 eries Services in Beaufort, has studied 

 the river herring and other fish of its 

 kind, striped bass and shad. 



They're anadromous fish. They live 

 as adults in the ocean but move to 

 fresh water to spawn. Like herring, 

 the spring runs of striped bass and 

 shad have also waned. 



Manooch believes the herring's in- 

 stinctual return to the rivers to propa- 

 gate may be its roadblock to survival. 



The Chowan and Roanoke, the core 

 rivers of the North Carolina herring 

 fishery, show the signs of human in- 

 tervention and abuse. 



Dams and other water projects have 

 altered the natural flow of these rivers, 

 Manooch says. Spring floods now last 

 for weeks instead of days, changing 

 key environmental signals for these 

 fish of inbred habit. 

 These instincts also drive herring to 



A pound net in 

 the Cashie River 

 awaits the annual 

 herring run. 



