Buckets brimming with herring

May 23, 2008 10:50 AM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

(Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff/file)

Some of the beneficiaries of last year's bucket brigade.

By Kate Augusto, Globe Correspondent

Fifty volunteers formed a bucket brigade this morning at the Medford Boat Club, but they are not bailing out a boat or dousing a fire. They came to help river herring.

The fish migrate upstream to spawn, but in the past river herring were stymied at a dam near the boat club that separates the Lower and Upper Mystic lakes. Three years ago the boat club and state Division of Marine Fisheries decided to do something about it.

The first year, a bucket brigade got about 500 fish over the dam. The next year they scooped up 4,000 fish from the Lower Mystic Lake and deposited them on the other side.

"Last year we helped over 19,000 over the dam," said Mary Griffin, commissioner of the state Department of Fish & Game. "This year it's been a little slower. The fish aren't running as fast [but] ... they come in waves, so it could be more this morning."

Officials hope to break the 20,000 fish mark this year. Up to 100 volunteers, including children and parents, are expected to grab buckets on Saturday.

River herring, which include alewife and the blueback species, live their first months in freshwater lakes before heading out to sea. The fish then return to freshwater to spawn. The state is planning to build a new dam that will include a fish ladder, Globe NorthWest reported Thursday.