The number of herring in Massachusetts has dropped dramatically since the 1970s. The Coonamessett River Trust is taking steps to help turn that around in Falmouth.
âWeâre trying to monitor and get some kind of idea of what the population of the herring is in the Coonamessett,â said Wendi B. Buesseler, president of the trust.
Linda A. Deegan, senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth and a trust board member, said that in 2019 a total of 5,969 fish were counted in the Coonamessett River, which the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries estimated to be 60,000 total fish, down from its 2016 estimate of 81,000.