Every March in Sitka, herring signal the arrival of spring. The cultural importance of herring to Lingít people cannot be overstated: Alaska Native people have been harvesting herring eggs as a traditional food for thousands of years. But in the last century, competition for access to the resource has grown.
For the last fifty years, a commercial fishery has shipped thousands of tons abroad every year. The commercial sac roe fishery is controversial. It’s had good years and bad years, and traditional harvesters have been protesting the fishery for decades. The Sitka Tribe of Alaska even sued the state in 2018 over its management. But the commercial fishery has been meeting an international demand for herring that, in years past, was strong.
Most of that fish has gone to Japan. This series is all about what happens once it gets there. Japan has long been the primary market for the fishery. But that market is changing. New regulations and evolving tastes have led to a dip in Japanese consumption of herring eggs, or kazunoko. So what does that mean for Sitka and Alaska’s other herring fisheries? In our five part series Phantom Fish: The return of Japan’s vanished herring industry, KCAW’s Katherine Rose went to Japan this spring to find out:
