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Speaker 1: Yeah, we just had a really exciting year for river

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Speaker 1: herring and the Mystic.

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Speaker 2: The Mystic River Watershed Association says river herring numbers are

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Speaker 2: reaching new heights. This year, more than eight hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifteen thousand river herring passed through the fish ladder at

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Speaker 2: Mystic Lakes Dam, the highest the population has been since

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Speaker 2: volunteers started keeping track in twenty twelve.

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Speaker 1: So because of interventions like fish ladders at the Mystic

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Speaker 1: Lakes Dam and Center Falls Dam, we're starting to see

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Speaker 1: that population come back and come back even bigger than

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Speaker 1: ever this year.

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Speaker 2: Daria Santalani, the senior engagement manager at the association, tells

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Speaker 2: me each year the hering go from the Atlantic Ocean

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Speaker 2: up through Boston Harbor, past the Amelia Earhart Dam, up

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Speaker 2: to freshwater lakes and ponds to mate and have their babies.

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Speaker 1: It's extremely exciting because river herring are really ecologically important.

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Speaker 1: They're a big part of both freshwater and marine food

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Speaker 1: webs because they make this migration.

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Speaker 2: She says, all this new data is thanks to their volunteers.

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Speaker 1: We have volunteers that go every day of the migration

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Speaker 1: from April through June, seven days a week, seven am

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Speaker 1: to seven pm, each going for hour to count how

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Speaker 1: many herring they're seeing passing the dam.

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Speaker 2: I'm a freedman, WBZ, Boston's news radio