It is believed that the mingling of river herring with ocean herring in the Atlantic resulted in an unintended commercial catch that, in large part, caused the massive drop in the amount of the small fish in the Mattapoisett River early in the 21st century.

            Where it concerns herring, the Tri-Town has never been the same.

            “We pretty much feel it was the offshore trawlers through a huge net. The river herring mingle with the ocean herring that they were trawling for. A lot of them, they don’t want them and they just dump them overboard. Then the other things are what Mother Nature throws at us,” said Art Benner, the president of Alewives Anonymous, Inc. who on October 2, sent his 2020 herring report to the Tri-Town and state officials. “We’ve had a few dry years and this is another dry year. Snipatuit (Pond), there hasn’t been a full pond at any time.”

            Due to an ultra-dry 2020, parts of the Mattapoisett River look like a gravel road with a puddle here and there.

            When electronic herring counts began in 1989, the annual count at the outlet of the Snipatuit Pond to the Mattapoisett River was 40,000. That number grew exponentially over the last decade of the 20th century, peaking at 130,000 in the year 2000. The sudden and spectacular drop down to crisis levels (i.e. 5,000 in 2004) led to a state-mandated ban on fishing herring in 2006.

            As is his spring custom, Benner, with help from Rochester Herring Inspector (and Alewives Anonymous, Inc. Vice President) David Watling, used electronic fish counters on the Mattapoisett River at Snipatuit Pond and the Sippican River at Leonard’s Pond to establish 2020 counts.

            The 2020 herring count in Mattapoisett River was 16,049, a decrease from 18,156 in 2019. Last year’s count marked the first increase since 2014 when the herring count recovered from a 2004 low of 5,000 to 55,429. Benner reported that the counting equipment functioned without errors last spring, making for ideal counting conditions.

            Benner said low water in Leonard’s Pond posed a counting problem toward the end of the season. A counter was not installed last year on the Sippican River at Leonard’s Pond; this year’s Sippican River count was 813, a number that Benner suspects represents pond fish moving up and down the ladder through the counter multiple times.

            The electronic counter cannot distinguish one fish from another. Benner says sometimes a wooden stick is enough to vibrate the three metal rings on the 8 inch in diameter fiberglass tube and trip the counter. “They can tell the order … reading from the rings whether it’s going up or down,” Benner said. “You might count one fish several times; that’s what those odd counts can represent sometimes.”

            Pickerel, bass, and sunfish will go down the ladder into the river and come back, further skewing the count. Snipatuit Pond is populated with zooplankton and small fish.

            Benner also reported a 574 herring count for 2020 at Hathaway Pond Dam, according to a counter run by Buzzards Bay Coalition.

            Alewives Anonymous, Inc. aka “The Herring Helpers” came along in the mid-1980s, but in spirit at least was around a long time before that, according to Benner. “Just as a group of interested people concerned about the herring population and what they might do to improve it and extend it and that sort of thing,” is how he described his “more or less” springtime operation.

            The people spend a fair amount of time removing trees and brush so the herring get a passage up from Snipatuit Pond to spawn. There is also a small run of herring on the Sippican River to Leonard’s Pond; the larger run is on the Mattapoisett.

            “(The count) hasn’t been improved that much,” said Benner. “They’re food for a lot of predatory fish and there’s a lot of big fish in there. If we don’t get them out (to the ocean to mature), we’re not going to get them back (to lay eggs).”

            It takes experience and skill to adjust the dikes connecting the ponds to the rivers and setting optimum water levels for the seasonal transfer of herring. A major concern with a dry summer is that, while the adults spawn and leave the pond by May, their offspring are not ready to leave until July. Many never make it out of the pond.

            “I hope to let as much water out of Snipatuit Pond as I could from the middle of June … they can stay in Snipatuit a long time, but when the bogs are flooded they can get sucked up into the bogs,” said Watling. “If nature was fine (this would happen in) dribs and drabs … so (I try to) get them out as early as possible. If the little ones are in Snipatuit now and we don’t get a substantial rain … there’s a chance they’ll get stranded on a cranberry bog.

            “I think we’re on the right track. I don’t think the cranberry industry has changed that much in the last 10 to 15 years – they’re more environmentally conscious.”

            A herring harvest isn’t likely until there are 50,000 strong in Snipatuit Pond. “Mattapoisett was one of the better herring-population rivers in the state, but we’ve certainly slipped way back,” said Benner, comparing his counts to the nearly million spawned in the Nemasket River through Middleborough and Lakeville.

            Recreational fishing has posed no threat to the tri-towns, according to Benner. “I think people are really good about the herring. It’s not like going out for trout. Back in colonial days, it was a food source, smoke them and fry them,” he said.

            Benner says the days of catch herring at the herring-fishing station at River Road and Route 6 and selling their carcasses to lobstermen as bait, “that’s been over for quite a while.”

            The moratorium against taking or possession of herring from many Massachusetts rivers including both the Mattapoisett and Sippican remains in effect. Since the 2014 recovery from 6,000 to 55,000, there have been declined counts, and Benner said improvements in counts must continue in order to sustain a fishery plan and justify an opening. In order to resume fishing, a sustainable harvest plan would have to be achieved, filed with and approved by the state Division of Marine Fisheries.

            While there is flow in Rochester, water levels are lower than Watling has ever seen, and his father was the town’s herring inspector before he was. Given the conditions, reopening the fishing of herring seems a long way off.

            “That’s the goal of Alewives Anonymous, but it’s my opinion and I told the state … they’ve asked the commercial fishermen to stay offshore during the spring migration,” said Watling.

            Offshore to most people means beyond Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, outside the 6-mile limit. But the depth of the water also factors.

            In Mattapoisett along Route 6, some 16,000 fish spread out over a period from mid-March to mid-May. “You’ve got to be there at the right time to see a bunch of them,” said Benner. “Clearing brush, we didn’t see any of them. Memorial Day Boat Race organizers help out on this.

            “We’re in it for a long run, I hope. You don’t need many adults to get a million eggs.”

By Mick Colageo

            Strong winds ruled out the usage of tents, but the Town of Marion was determined to get through its first drive-through flu-shot clinic in anticipation of the day there might be an opportunity to administer a COVID-19 vaccine.

            The flu clinic, held for residents on October 8 at the Benjamin D. Cushing Community Center, was the first event organized for the town by Lori Desmarais as its new public health nurse in concert with the town’s Board of Health and Police Department.

            “Lori and Lieutenant (Richard) Nighelli have gone above and beyond,” said Town Administrator Jay McGrail of their efforts organizing the event. “At one point we were backed up all the way out to the screening station. We never had a backup on Route 6. At the end of the day, we will have had over 150 (receiving vaccinations). … Lori’s been here just shy of a month and she pulled all this off.”

            Preparation was key and to that end, a dry run was conducted a week prior for town employees. This event, it is hoped, will eventually be considered preparation for the potential distribution of a coronavirus vaccine. That event, if it occurred in the middle of the winter, would include a two-lane, drive-through tent in which the vaccine would be administered.

            Between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm last Thursday, cars streamed into 465 Mill Street, using the driveway on the left side of the building on the way in and curling around the back before exiting on the opposite side. Senior citizens were asked to visit the clinic between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm and the general public from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

            At the first station on the driveway to the left of the building, pre-registrants were checked off of a list, their temperatures taken and their paperwork verified,” said McGrail. A couple of applicants were sent away.

            At the second station on the opposite side of the building, paperwork was given a more thorough check and copies were taken of insurance cards. It was also determined by staff which dosage was appropriate and a corresponding sticker affixed to their paperwork.

            A four-station inoculation area was staffed with five public-health nurses including Desmarais, recently retired Marion health nurse Kathleen Downey and soon-to-retire Mattapoisett Health Nurse Amanda Stone. “The key is, it’s all hands on-deck,” said McGrail, whose mother-in-law is a licensed nurse and volunteered to assist.

            If someone was receiving a flu shot for the first time, they pulled over to a special area where they could remain under the observation of an emergency medical technician (EMT) for the prescribed 15 minutes to ensure immediate attention in the event of any adverse reaction to the vaccine. Ages 2 and older were eligible to receive a vaccine, and the higher dose was made available to ages 65 and older.

            “Taking steps to protect against other respiratory illnesses is especially important as we continue to fight the COVID-19 virus across the region,” said Desmarais in a press release advertising the event to the community.

            Though they would not be leaving their vehicles, residents were required to facemasks along with short sleeves. They were also asked ahead of time to complete their insurance forms and bring insurance and Medicare cards – but not their pets – in order to expedite the process in the event of crowds.

            Vaccinations were given to all regardless of insurance status or ability to pay, and transportation was made available for seniors through the Council on Aging.

            For more information about this clinic, call the Board of Health at (508) 748-3530 or the Council on Aging at (508) 748-3570.

By Mick Colageo

            Erik Durant has been capturing the human form, facial expressions, and themes that run the gamut from mythology to real-life situations for many years. In his studio works, he can be free to explore subject matter as he pleases. When it comes to commissioned pieces the pressure is on to get it right, but finding out what right is can be elusive.

            When the Celebrate Elizabeth Taber Committee headed up by Judith Rosbe selected Durant to create the statue that will be celebrated and unveiled at 11:00 am Saturday, October 17, in Bicentennial Park across Spring Street from the Marion Town House, he was given a packet of research materials that the group had collected and pictures that were as he described “an amalgamation” of images. “There was little to go on outside what she had done,” he confessed in a recent interview with The Wanderer.

            Taber’s history was researched for the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s “Lighting the Way: Historic Women of the Southcoast” program. In that published biography, we are told that Taber was born in Marion in 1791 and died in Marion in 1888. She was very religious and left Marion for New Bedford when she married Stephen Pitcher, settling into domesticity.

            Yet Taber would know sorrow and loneliness from the loss of all three of her children before they reached the age of 6 and her husband who died shortly after the Civil War. She withdrew from society living a sober, quiet life in her County Street home for many years. But she certainly spent considerable time studying financial matters.

            It is due to her wise investments in railroads and mills that she was able to amass a great fortune, giving a lion’s share to her beloved Town of Marion. She funded not only the building of her preferred Christian faith, the First Congregational Church, but also the library that bears her name, and the Music Hall. Taber also funded the Marion Natural History Museum and founded Tabor Academy. All this earned her the nickname of Marion’s Fairy Godmother. To clarify, Tabor (note “o” not “e”) Academy is named after Mount Tabor in Palestine, not after its benefactor.

            Taber brought education, culture, art, and music to a community that continues to benefit from all her gifts.

            How to capture in a face, in the position of a seated human body that bears age and has experienced the highs and lows of life, how to distill a fleeting gesture, how to bring together all that Taber embodied – that was Durant’s challenge.

            Durant’s public works, with the exception of the squid which rises gaily above the gallery space at the NBWM, are full of emotion. “The committee wanted her to be warm,” he confided, saying that he sought to capture an expression that one might have when alone, sitting on a bench, lost in private thoughts. “Maybe in this sculpture she is thinking about what she has done or what she wants to do next.” He imagined her surveying all she has done in a casual pose, in a candid moment when no one is looking.

            The artist may have struggled a bit seeking, teasing out the person behind the bits and pieces he was able to cobble together of the real person. “How much can you trust the photography?” was a question Durant grappled with during the early sketches and clay models. “She looks so stern in the image.” He knew there was more there than was meeting his eye.

            “There was a narrative, what I was looking at was just the cover of the book,” he said. “People have a concept of a face, even their own, but it might not be the same as what someone else will see.”

            Over the course of about two years, all the elements Durant sought to bring together glacially moved into position.

            Durant knew from local accounts that Taber was seen around town smoking a pipe. Adding that detail provoked a bit of discussion, but in the end, the pipe helped to humanize Taber, pull her out of the historical context into humanity. “When you are given a few sentences about a person you grab onto it; she was a person, she was maybe the type of woman she wanted to be … that can resonate with us today.” He said that there is a misperception that Victorian-age people were all prim and proper. “That pipe made her a regular person.”

            Durant’s Taber is seated in a natural posture, a comfortable position, possibly defying polite edicts of how a woman was to sit when in public once again bringing the idea of a real person to the fore. The statue is life-size of a woman of about 5-foot-4-in height, clothed in period dress but not fussy or formal attire. Durant researched clothing at the NBWM to get a sense of what everyday wear in the 19th century might have looked like. “When you sit down beside her, you’ll be able to look her in the eye,” he said with a smile in his voice.

            According to Tinker Saltonstall, the Celebrate Elizabeth Taber Committee will turn over the statue to the Town of Marion at Saturday’s ceremony. Sippican Historical Society coordinated the fundraising effort and, according to Rosbe, the Elizabeth Taber Statue Committee chairperson, donated $50,000 to the effort. Tabor Academy donated $10,000, and private donors contributed to a total topping $175,000.

            Between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm, Spring Street will be closed to traffic between Cottage and Main streets. Saturday’s event will be held rain or shine.

By Marilou Newell