{"id":308,"date":"2022-08-04T08:18:44","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T08:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.napier.ac.uk\/enuapplyscience\/?p=308"},"modified":"2022-08-04T08:18:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T08:18:46","slug":"help-the-hunt-for-west-of-scotlands-herring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.napier.ac.uk\/enuapplyscience\/2022\/08\/04\/help-the-hunt-for-west-of-scotlands-herring\/","title":{"rendered":"Help the hunt for west of Scotland\u2019s herring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Historically, Atlantic herring were a vitally important fish to the people of Scotland. Once the largest fishery globally, stocks dramatically collapsed in the 1970s. On the west coast of Scotland, herring never fully recovered, but since 2018 large shoals of spawning herring have been observed off Wester Ross.<\/p>\n

Edinburgh Napier University is now leading a project working with Scottish west coast communities and organizations between the Clyde and Cape Wrath, including the Hebrides, to identify herring spawning habitat and help conserve it.\u00a0 This will give the silver darlings\u2019 populations on the west coast a chance to reproduce and grow again. The project is called the West of Scotland Herring Hunt (WOSHH) and funded by the William Grant Foundation*.<\/p>\n

WOSHH launches a new website\u00a0 scottishherring.org<\/a> today [4 August] at the Gairloch Museum. The website is the first dedicated to Scottish herring.\u00a0 It is a place to share knowledge on Atlantic herring in Scottish seas and find out more about their ecological, economic and cultural importance. The public will also see a demonstration of a forthcoming new citizen-science tool, a web app, inviting everyone to join in on \u2018herring hunts\u2019 to report signs of spawning.<\/p>\n

Both website and the hunting tool have been co-developed by staff and students from Edinburgh Napier\u2019s School of Applied Sciences and the School of Computing, under the guidance of Karen Diele, Professor of Marine Ecology, the lead of WOSHH, and co-investigator Dr Simon Wells.<\/p>\n

Unlike most other marine fish, reproducing herring relies on specific benthic (on the seabed) spawning habitat. But knowledge of location and status of such essential habitat is scarce on the west coast of Scotland.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealthy spawning habitat could help rebuild inshore herring populations, with potentially positive social and economic impacts, as well as improving biodiversity and ecosystem functioning,\u201d explains Professor Diele. \u201cWOSHH will establish connections and dialogue between key stakeholders, promote co-management strategies of inshore waters, and champion the integration of essential spawning grounds into herring management.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Michelle Frost, WOSHH\u2019s project coordinator continues: \u201cHerring are important to a wide range of species that feed upon them, including not only humans but also sand eels, haddock, cod, many seabirds, porpoise and minke whales. By attracting these charismatic species, herring can benefit local communities, increasing income from wildlife tourism\u201d.<\/p>\n

Herring themselves feed mostly on plankton and help move energy from the bottom of marine food webs to top predators, functioning as a keystone species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Cunningham, biologist from the Wester Ross Fisheries Trust says \u201cHerring have been so important locally, and our community has a renewed interest in west coast herring now, since we observed large shoals recently near Gairloch for the first time in almost 50 years\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dr Karen Buchanan, curator of the Gairloch Museum explains \u201cWe are delighted to add our support to the WOSHH project, which is helping to address urgent research needs in our area, and to host the outreach event today\u201d.<\/p>\n

The WOSHH project will help determine the location and status of essential herring spawning grounds in inshore waters on the Scottish west coast. \u201cThe new herring hunting web-app will increase this project\u2019s inclusivity, since it will allow everyone to contribute as citizen scientists\u201d, says Dr Wells.<\/p>\n

Professor Diele adds that the WOSHH project is also linking research and teaching: \u201cIt was fantastic to work with our enthusiastic and capable Undergraduate (Lewis Watson), MSc students (Serajus Salekin, Bhaavya Malpani) and volunteers (Laura McBride, former Edinburgh Napier University student) to build the citizen-science web-app, the webpage and for support of our research.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The Gairloch Museum outreach event was supported by the University\u2019s Public Engagement Interdisciplinary Fund, bringing Edinburgh Napier University\u2019s research and teaching expertise to Wester Ross.<\/p>\n

\u201cHerring is important for healthy functional Scottish seas that provide humans and other species with so many benefits,\u201d concludes Professor Diele. They deserve our support, so that populations can re-establish where possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

*The William Grant Foundation is a non-profit association established to support charitable causes in Scotland. Its work is funded by William Grant and Sons Ltd.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Prof Karen Diele\u00a0 k.diele@napierac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Michelle Frost: mfrost2@napier.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historically, Atlantic herring were a vitally important fish to the people of Scotland. Once the largest fishery globally, stocks dramatically collapsed in the 1970s. On the west coast of Scotland, herring never fully recovered, but since 2018 large shoals of spawning herring have been observed off Wester Ross. Edinburgh Napier University is now leading a … Continue reading Help the hunt for west of Scotland\u2019s herring<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,121],"tags":[123,124],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-120","category-woshh","tag-herring","tag-woshh"],"yoast_head":"\nHelp the hunt for west of Scotland\u2019s herring - The School of Applied Sciences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.napier.ac.uk\/enuapplyscience\/2022\/08\/04\/help-the-hunt-for-west-of-scotlands-herring\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Help the hunt for west of Scotland\u2019s herring - The School of Applied Sciences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Historically, Atlantic herring were a vitally important fish to the people of Scotland. 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