Herring

Where it lives

Atlantic herring inhabit the temperate North Atlantic from the Bay of Biscay to Labrador and east to the Barents Sea. They form enormous pelagic schools that migrate seasonally between feeding, spawning, and overwintering grounds.

How to recognise it

A slim, laterally compressed fish with a deeply forked tail and a row of sharp, keeled scales (scutes) along the belly. The body is iridescent silver-blue above and silver below, with no spots. A single soft-rayed dorsal fin sits near mid-body.

Diet & behavior

Herring filter-feed on copepods, krill, and other zooplankton, switching to active selective feeding on larger items as they grow. They spawn on the seafloor — eggs are deposited on gravel, weed, or coarse sand and stick to the substrate, unique among major schooling fish.

Fisheries & Conservation

Globally Least Concern. Herring once supported colossal European fisheries; the North Sea stock collapsed in the 1970s and rebuilt under strict quota management, becoming a textbook recovery story.