This spring we managed to work in the area of Chupa Bay in the White Sea. We can say that here, in the Kandalaksha Bay, spring, perhaps, begins with herring spawning. The Pacific herring mainly lives here, its special form is Yegoryevskaya. This is a unique population – of all herring, it is the most cold-resistant. It usually begins to spawn at freezing temperatures under ice, and its eggs develop longer than other populations of Pacific herring – about 30-50 days. These are relatively small fish – about 15-20 cm long. It is interesting that in its genome there are also Atlantic herring’s, which can also spawn in the White Sea, although this happens very rarely – no one has observed it spawning. In the White Sea, herring alongside with stickleback live in open waters and are competitors. Therefore, it is of particular interest to us.
We process herring samples most often under conditions that can only barely be called lab work. But this is the everyday life of a field ichthyologist (Dmitry Taborsky and a colleague from SevPINRO Alexei Bezborodov).
An additional difficulty this year - masks (Dmitry Lajus).
Since we analyze many different characteristics on one individual, we number them carefully.
Usually on marine macrophytes (fucoids, zostera) in May, there are a lot of herring eggs in these places. This is how the typical spawning grounds of the “white sea” herring in Chupa Bay look like. But this year not many herring came for spawning, and, accordingly, there is not many eggs. However, herring is a short-cycle fish, it matures early, so strong fluctuations in numbers are very typical for it.
Of course, there are some eggs this year as well. Eggs are attached very strongly to fucoids in the littoral zone and can tolerate periodic drying.
And these are dead, already whitened eggs in the algae discharged by storm. And this is a pretty dense nest too. It is difficult to say where it came from, but it is absolutely certain that it is from some nearby spawning grounds, because Chupa inlet is very narrow. This means that spawning was still not so bad and the next generation of herring should turn out to be quite full-fledged.
Herring eggs can cover fishing gear like a solid carpet - but not this year. Although there is some here too
This is evidenced by the rather large number of herring larvae in the sea. Here is the catch of ichthyoplankton net through which 130 cubic meters of water have been filtered. If you look closely, you can count here about a dozen herring larvae, which are visible by a pair of their black eyes.
And the White sea herring will continue to delight local fishermen, who catch it not only with nets, but also with fishing rods. Often, such catches are even larger - at such a time, dozens of fishermen gather on the “burned pier” in Chupa. And now they are waiting - for when the herring will come.
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