Herring Herding

Even for fish, herring are not bright; to them a curtain of air bubbles looks like a stone wall. Taking advantage of this lack of judgment, the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries is trying out an ingenious system of herding schools of herring into fishermen's nets.

Trials were conducted among the craggy islands in Casco Bay, near Portland, Me., where dense schools of herring drift through twisted channels. Traditionally, Maine fishermen float long nets out into the channels to shunt the herring into the waiting traps. But such nets have drawbacks. They need constant maintenance, they cannot be extended across heavily traveled waterways, they are often carried away by tidal currents.

In its test operations, the bureau used a light airplane to spot herring schools approaching the channel between Great Diamond and Peaks islands. When a school was sighted, the bureau's boats ran a 1,200-ft. length of perforated polyethylene pipe out into the channel. Air pumped into the hose by a compressor bubbled out through the holes. When the herring came to the white curtain, they turned aside, swam along it into the trap.

The bureau figured that in six nights of tests, fishermen netted enough herring to more than pay for the total cost ($2,802) of all the extra apparatus.

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