The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will host an informational meeting about Sitka’s 2021 herring season on Friday (3-12-21).
ADF&G hosts the meeting each year, but last year’s was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. State biologists will discuss the department’s survey and sampling results, herring forecasts, and the 2019 and 2020 subsistence herring egg harvests.
According to an ADF&G press release, the department will host a separate meeting to discuss the management of the 2021 Sitka Sac Roe Herring fishery. A date for that meeting will be announced once the fishery is on two-hour notice.
The commercial fishery didn’t happen last year, due in part to low market demand and COVID-19. The year before, the fishery went on two-hour notice but never opened.
Fish and Game set the commercial harvest level for this year’s fishery of 33,000 tons, but the state predicts that processors won’t buy that much fish. Last year, the Sitka Tribe of Alaska won a pair of legal victories against the state, arguing that subsistence harvests were not reasonably accounted for during management of the fishery.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting will be held virtually, beginning at 5 p.m.
Join zoom meeting here
