Sitka’s commercial herring fishery is smaller this year, and that means fishery reports from the state will be restricted.
At an informational meeting on Wednesday (3-19-25), Area Management Biologist Aaron Dupuis said that fewer than three processors and a limited fleet are participating this year. Dupuis said the low participation means that they cannot release harvest data to the public. The Alaska law, which exists for all fisheries, says that the state can release confidential fish ticket data if more than three entities are involved in the fishery.
“Because we will have less than three processors this year, I think this is the first time ever in the history of the Sitka Sound Sac Roe herring fishery, but because of the number of processors, harvest data will be confidential from this year,” Dupuis said. “That’s state law. There’s no way around it. I wish it were different sometimes, but harvest information will be confidential this year.”
Dupuis said he thinks the fishery, with its limited capacity, could harvest around 1000 tons per day this year, which is relatively normal for recent years. But the state won’t be sharing the daily catch information or the total tonnage of herring harvested at the end of the season.
Harvest data is a carefully followed metric in the controversial fishery. Herring eggs have been a highly valued traditional food source for Alaska Native people for thousands of years, and traditional harvesters have called for more conservative management of the commercial fishery for decades.
In last year’s fishery, the state set the highest ever harvest rate at over 80,000 tons. That number was later called into question, after the state released a report acknowledging that it was based on a population estimate nearly double the actual population of fish. However, fishermen only harvested around 12,000 tons, pointing to lower participation and market demand than previous years, even though state data shows the fish population is doing well. This year’s guideline harvest level is set at just over 35,000 tons.
