Herring as food Herring as food Herrings are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family Clupeidae. They often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast. The most abundant and commercially important species belong to the genus "Clupea", found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea, as well as off the west coast of South America. Three species of "Clupea" are recognized. The main taxon, the Atlantic herring, accounts for over half the world's commercial capture of herrings. Herrings played a pivotal role in the history of marine fisheries
History of the west coast of North America all adjoining land and islands. This act gave Spain exclusive sovereignty and navigation rights over the entire west coast of North America. The commonly held belief at the time was that the west coast of North America was in modest sailing distance of Asia to the west, or the two might actually physically connect. To the north was imagined a narrow Northwest Passage, known as the Strait of Anián, which some believed reached the Pacific Ocean at 42° north latitude (the latitude of today's border between Oregon and California) and connected to the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of St.