Inside Climate News: Herring and Herons: Signs of the Charles River’s Vast Improvement

From Boston’s Museum of Science to the Watertown Dam, the Charles River this spring was rife with river herring swirling in the water. Near the dam, dozens of the aptly named herring gulls perched on rocks and plunged for the fish. In 1920, a state wildlife report found that the alewife (herring) fisheries in most of the state’s biggest rivers, including the Charles, had “disappeared.” The Charles was in such an “impoverished” condition that its chances for recovery were considered “poor.” The federally-enforced cleanup of the Charles of the last three decades is a testament to what can happen when we stop treating a river as a toilet. We may never fully restore herring back to its historic populations, but enough are coming back to trigger a feeding frenzy that rivals what one might see in a national wildlife refuge. More STORY.