Because of their size and historic abundance, they support the existence of dozens of species from cormorants, merganzers, and sea lions to chinook, coho, killer whales and porpoises. Herring are the bread and butter of BC's coast fishery. They are at the centre of a vast network of inter-dependence among marine plant and animal life, and the survival of many species depends on the health of herring stocks. Herring have a position at the centre of the ecological landscape. Every February and March schools of herring head for the many shallow bays and inlets along BC's coast to spawn.
Herring can survive and spawn for as many as ten years.
But, they usually begin spawning at three and continue at their most productive in years four and five. Herring roe are a traditional source of food for the Haida who harvest kelp covered in roe after the spawn, and eat it dried or salted. Enormous numbers were caught and reduced to fish oil and meal used for animal feed and crop fertilizer. The huge catches decimated the fishery and the federal government closed it in 1967 when herring stocks collapsed coast-wide. It stayed closed until 1972 when the modern roe fishery began.