Pacific Herring
86cm
This buoy was found by Ocean Adventures Charters on their beach clean-up initiative in the summer of 2021. It likely came from a crab fishery, either recreational or commercial, to mark where the traps have been placed on the sea floor. It was found in the Normansell Islands near Aristazabal Island on the central coast of British Columbia, Canada. The recycled line it hangs from I found washed up on a beach near a fish farm and likely came from the pens. I have spliced the line into a loop and lashed the ends with waxes sailing twine.
On this buoy I have painted a bull kelp forest with a school of herring swimming through it. Herring return each spring to the coastal waters all along the BC coast to spawn. This is an incredible site, their milt turns the North Pacific waters Caribbean blue and their eggs are laid thick on kelp, sea grass, rocks and sometimes even crabs that stand too still for too long. Animals all over the coast feast themselves on this golden buffet and the proliferation of life is and incredible site.