Last month, we wrote about an effort by local restaurateurs to bring back herring—once a staple of the Seattle diet and now fished primarily for bait and shipped overseas to Japan. There are a lot of reasons to bring it back: In addition to being culturally significant, the bony fish is also extremely tasty and really good for you—chock-full of vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids. But there's maybe another reason why we should eat herring (and other small fish like it): Its very survival may depend on it. According to the New Yorker:

Three years ago, a far-reaching analysis of forage fish, put out by the Lenfest Foundation and financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts, reported that thirty-seven per cent of global seafood landings recorded annually consist of forage fish, up from less than ten per cent fifty years ago. Of that thirty-seven percent, only a small fraction goes to the consumer market—mostly in the form of fish oils and supplements—while the bulk is processed into pellets and fishmeal, then fed to animals like salmon, pigs, and chicken.

The thinking is to cut the haul of forage fish in half (and pay fishermen twice as much) by increasing the price and demand for these small fishes. In other words, if diners suddenly demand herring on their plates, the price of forage fish will increase. (This presumes fishermen then won't just try to catch as much forage fish as possible to use as bait or feed.) The scenario, if effective, would also help more popular predator fishes such as swordfish and tuna, because they would have more to eat.

Could such a scenario work? There's one way to find out.