Herring and their spawn are an important source of food for larger fish (lingcod, halibut, Pacific cod, salmon, etc.), river otters, marine mammals, and seabirds. This fish is an important part of our marine ecosystem, but is declining in certain parts of the inland waters. The Cherry Point and Discovery Bay stocks of Pacific herring are listed as candidates for listing by Washington State. The SeaDoc Societyrecently funded a project to investigate the role that contaminants and genetics may play in causing developmental abnormalities in the Cherry Point stock. This stock is one of the most important in Washington because it is historically the largest in Washington waters (Cherry Point once comprised about 32 percent of the state's known total abundance) and Cherry Point herring are spring spawning fish, in contrast to other Washington herring stocks, which are winter spawning stocks. For more information see Cause(s) of developmental abnormalities among larvae from Puget Sound's once-largest herring population.

For more information about the natural history of Pacific herring, visit the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's Forage Fish web page.

Additional information about the causes of the Cherry Point herring decline in the online science magazine "Fish and Wildlife Science" located on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website.