Efforts by the Sitka Tribe of Alaska to change the state’s approach to management of the Sitka Sac Roe Herring fishery don’t look like they’re going anywhere. The second of three proposals submitted by the Tribe failed to win the support of the Sitka Fish & Game Advisory Committee Monday night (11-8-21), just days after an earlier proposal was also shot down.
Proposal 157 would require the Alaska Department of Fish & Game to account for the age structure of the herring population before setting harvest quotas, in order to protect older herring aged 6 to 8 years.
Read the full text of Proposal 157.
Biologist Kyle Rosendale explained that Proposal 157, one of three prepared by the Sitka Tribe, was about trying to restore the historic distribution of herring in Sitka Sound, without resorting to a fishing moratorium.
“These proposals are about protecting those older fish that we know are the most fecund have the most well provisioned eggs whose larvae are most likely to survive, recruit to the population and reproduce again,” Rosenthal said. “But we also know from traditional knowledge that those older fish are the are the fish that lead the younger fish in the population to spawning grounds and show them optimal spawning habitat.”
Rosendale added: “And traditional knowledge describes a very large contraction in spatial temporal distribution and abundance of herring spawn over time. And over a large timescale. And so that’s really what these proposals are getting at is protecting these fish that are valuable both biologically for recruiting to the population, but also for subsistence harvesters and making sure that that there are eggs in the places where subsistence harvesters had eggs for 1000s of years since time immemorial until recent decades.”
The Department of Fish & Game has been managing the sac roe fishery for four decades, and its data suggest that the herring population in the Sound is as large as it’s ever been. But for some members of the public, there was more to the story than data. Chandler O’Connell works for the Sitka Conservation Society.
“The bigger point I think is that we know this is the last stronghold for herring in Southeast and that it’s dwarfed in comparison to what existed here historically,” O’Connell said. “So I am of the mindset that we should take every step available to make sure that herring continue here — and the more abundantly, the better.”
The tribal proposals are intended to improve access to herring spawn for subsistence harvesters. Despite the large herring population, former Alaska Native Sisterhood Grand President Paulette Moreno testified that subsistence harvests had been disrupted by the commercial fishery.
“I know that there were times that we left branches in the water, there are times we brought branches up that were not full, there were times that some of them were full,” said Moreno. “But it took about 10 times as much physical effort, spiritual effort, and good common sense with the people that we were with to find the quality this year of eggs on ranches to share with their families.”
She continued: “So I think of (Proposal) 157 having the older fish stay in the water, it is not just a matter of yours and calculation that turns into money. It’s a calculation that turns into the quality of the meal that we share with our families, no matter how much. Thank you.”
The commercial herring fishery is driven by markets that favor the larger, older fish that contain better-quality roe. Selectivity at the time of harvest is already happening. Seiner Justin Peeler suggested that selecting for older-age fish was another way of just scaling back fishing.
“We do not drive around the sound and target Just the six, seven, and eight-year olds,” said Peeler. “We take an average size of the set of the biomass, and we fish in an area. And of that average size, we have three- and four-year olds and all the fish mixed up in there, and that’s what we harvest. I don’t think that this will do anything besides make our harvest more selective.”
As with the Tribe’s previous proposal a week earlier, the Sitka Fish & Game Advisory Committee was divided over Proposal 157.
Moe Johnson holds the seine seat on the committee, but he comes from a subsistence tradition. He didn’t think 157 would accomplish its goals.
“We can’t control where the herring are going to spawn,” said Johnson. “If they don’t spawn in the prime areas for branches, there’s not a proposal that we can come up with that will change that. So right now, I can’t support it. Thank you.”
The committee voted 3-5 to reject Proposal 157. Although a setback, the “no” vote does not mean that the proposal will necessarily fail when the state Board of Fisheries considers it at its January meeting in Ketchikan.
