Herring are delicious, with flaky, mild meat and oil that sizzles on their skin when grilled over a flame. Chefs and ocean advocates have been promoting the environmental and health benefits of eating small fish like this. But the case of the San Francisco Bay’s herring shows some of the obstacles to spreading that message.
Alastair Bland for NPR
Every winter, a small fleet of commercial fishing boats sets gillnets in the San Francisco Bay. Their target: Pacific herring, which enter the estuary in huge numbers to spawn and are easily caught by the millions. The…