Herring Population at Mystic Lakes Dam Hits Three-Year High

Citizen scientists have been working to calculate the number of river herring passing through the fish ladder at Mystic Lakes Dam to spawn in Upper Mystic Lake in recent years.

The Mystic River Watershed Association and hundreds of volunteers have been working to count the river herring since 2012. According to the Mystic River Watershed Association, the citizen scientists were able to document nearly half a million river herring that swam through the fish ladder at Mystic Lakes Dam to spawn in 2015, representing a 100 percent increase over the counts in the past three years.

The Mystic River Watershed Association works each year to train a set of volunteers to perform visual counts at the fish ladder Mystic Lakes Dam, the MRWA said in a release. The volunteers agree to perform at least one 10-minute observation each week. Volunteers in the 2015 program performed 680 10-minute observations and counted 57,617 fish.

The Mystic River is one of 78 river herring runs in Massachusetts. River herring are an important component of ocean fisheries, and they need access to freshwater systems to survive, according to the release.

“The scale of this herring migration shows the Mystic River to be a living, breathing ecosystem, filled with life,” MyRWA Executive Director, EkOngKar Singh Khalsa, said in the release. “It may be hard to see that life from Interstate I-93, and it is easy to take this urban river for granted. But the herring run speaks to the importance of treating natural spaces in urban areas with great respect and care. We can live alongside nature, if we are thoughtful.”

The Mystic River Watershed serves more than 22 communities in the area, including the Town of Arlington.

(Photo courtesy of the Mystic River Watershed Association)