Promisla Bay is a cove about 10 miles northwest of Sitka. In the past few years, as schools of herring have been more heavily concentrated in areas further from town, the bay has become increasingly important for subsistence harvesters to harvest herring eggs on branches.
Last fall, a traditional harvester proposed the Board of Fish close the area to the commercial sac roe herring fishery. Sitka’s Fish and Game Advisory Committee vacillated on its support for the proposal, initially voting it down in November before reversing its decision in January. It showed up at the board’s table with support from the local committee and the public.
At the Board of Fish meeting, traditional harvester Paulette Moreno called for the Promisla Bay area to be protected.
“We have been cultivating this area to come back to more of an abundance for our traditional harvest,” Moreno said. “It is closer to town. It is safe to safer for our harvesters on small skiffs to be able to reach the bay…this is an area that is safer, more economically feasible, and that produces herring eggs that we would feed our families.”
Several advocates for the proposal noted state data that shows few commercial harvests have been taken from Promisla Bay in the last decade. At the same time, the subsistence harvest has continued to supply more eggs to communities around the state. Torah Zamora of Ketchikan visited Sitka to help with the harvest last year.
“It really is the capital of the herring, it is just full of life. And I was just so inspired by all the life that was happening and the opportunity to participate in culture and feed our community,” Zamora said. “Throughout Southeast Alaska, not even just in Sitka, and provide eggs for here in Ketchikan too, because they provide eggs for so many.”
Several commercial seiners pushed back on the proposal. Permit holder Marcus Nelson of Metlakatla said it was unnecessary as commercial fishermen don’t go into the bay if they see subsistence sets.
“If somebody is subsistence fishing in the area, every permit holder moves immediately, moves out of the area does not does not bother the area where they’re subsisting, and they can subsist in the closed area, which is a 10 miles that the permit holders already relinquished quite a number of years ago,” Nelson said.
Some board members were swayed by the testimony in favor of closing the bay to commercial fishing. Board Chair Marit Carlson-Van Dort called it “an exceptional circumstance of the subsistence economy.”
“I think the more I’ve listened to this discussion, the more hard over I’ve become yes, that this is important, and not only for that reason, but also because of the safety considerations that we also heard in public testimony,” Carlson-Van Dort said.
But board member Tom Carpenter said because the area hadn’t been commercially used demonstrated that the proposal wasn’t necessary.
“If people would have come up and said, ‘We can’t go in there because the harvest on the commercial side is too much. They’re interfering with, you know, our subsistence activities.’ I just didn’t hear that,” Carpenter said. “So I think that this is kind of a unique situation around Sitka. Obviously, I take it very seriously. But I mean, until it can be demonstrated that there is a real conflict, I just can’t support it.”
Ultimately the proposal failed on a 3-4 vote. The Alaska Board of Fisheries approved only three herring proposals this cycle, all submitted by state fishery managers.
