Herring spawn off northern Vancouver Island dazzles residents and animals alike | 24CA News

Just off the coast of northern Vancouver Island, the ocean waters have turned a vibrant shade of turquoise as herring spawn in an space the place they’ve by no means been recorded earlier than.

Port McNeill resident Jackie Hildering, who works with the Marine Education and Research Society, says the spawn has given her and her neighbours a “front-row seat to the importance of herring.”

“We can hear the barking of California sea lions, that growling of steller sea lions. There is a cacophony coming from the birds, from gulls to diving birds to the eagles that are swooping down,” she instructed All Points West host Jason D’Souza. 

The spawn is going on off the coast of Port McNeill and Hyde Creek, an space the place Department of Fisheries and Oceans biologist Jaclyn Cleary says a herring spawn has by no means been recorded.

“It doesn’t mean that there has never been a spawn there before,” she mentioned, including that DFO’s information date again to 1950. 

The water’s color comes from the milt of the male herring — that’s, to place it in human phrases, its sperm. 

Hildering, a diver and underwater photographer, research humpback whales, which usually feed on juvenile herring, she mentioned.

“I’ve never seen adult herring in these amounts before in this area.”

After talking with First Nations, researchers and longtime residents, she hasn’t been capable of finding anybody else within the space who can bear in mind a spawn like this.

According to the Hornby Island Conservancy, about 280 kilometres southeast of Port McNeill, Pacific herring is likely one of the most essential fish in B.C. waters, as sea birds, mammals and different fish feed on them. 

The conservancy says they’re vital to the food regimen of chinook salmon, that are an essential meals supply for southern resident killer whales.

Typically, herring spawn between Parksville and Comox off Vancouver Island’s east coast, and round Hornby and Denman islands, the conservancy says. 

The herring spawn sometimes occurs in waves in numerous areas alongside Vancouver Island’s east coast throughout the spring, in line with the DFO. Spawning exercise at every particular person website lasts two to 4 days.

Hildering mentioned she and different residents are eager to observe the event of the fish, from eggs on eelgrass till they hatch. She’s additionally hopeful they might return to the world in future years.

To see precise water change color, to know there’s this phenomenon happening and that we get to see the meals net like magnified at our doorstep … most of us proper now are simply completely in awe of this spectacle that we’re so fortunate to have occurring in entrance of our group.”