Proposal Guide for Herring @ Board of Fisheries Jan '22:
Herring Protectors at 2018 Board of Fisheries meeting. Photo by Bethany Goodrich.
The Board of Fisheries for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will be reviewing herring proposals at the 2022 Southeast Alaska Finfish meetings, which are currently scheduled to occur in Ketchikan from January 4-16. Comments are open now through December 22, 2021. Please submit one!
Summary of our Recommendations
We strongly support the three proposals by the Sitka Tribe of Alaska - proposals 156, 157, 158. These proposals are designed to incorporate specific elements of traditional ecological knowledge into the management of the commercial herring fishery in Sitka Sound and will foster herring abundance, which will benefit everybody in the long run.
We strongly oppose proposals 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, by sac roe seine permit holders and the herring seine lobby group the Southeast Herring Conservation Alliance. These proposals will lead to destructive high-grading and the renewed decimation of local stocks in the bays and inlets up and down the coast, and mark the industry's desire to expand the scope of their permits to fully capitalize on the emerging abundance of herring in Sitka and beyond.
We further believe that none of these proposals go far enough to affirm the fact of massive depletion of herring in the last century by commercial overfishing. This pattern has been devastating for indigenous people and coastal communities up and down the coast. The people of Southeast Alaska have been very clear for the last century in asking for an end to wasteful and destructive herring seining practices. This time of market failure for the fishery offers an ideal opportunity to take serious steps to foster abundance of herring populations up and down the coast of Baranof Island. We want wild abundance and shared prosperity for all creatures who depend on herring - not a parasitic commercial fishery.
Sitka Tribe of Alaska Proposals
Proposal 156
Proposal 156 (STA) will foster abundance by reducing the fish available to the commercial fleet in extremely lean years like 2018. It will do this by making a slight adjustment to the way that the quota is calculated. This way, a harvest of 10% of the herring will occur if there is an estimated 25,000 tons of mature herring in Sitka Sound, and a maximum harvest of 20% will occur if there are at least 150,000 tons. That means a much more gradual increase than is currently the case - right now it goes from 12% at 25,000 tons to 20% at 45,000 tons, keeping herring populations low.
Proposal 157/158 (STA)
Proposal 157 (STA) and 158 recognize the importance of older fish for the survival and thriving of herring populations. Big old fish are more re-productively successful than young fish, and they teach the young fish how to do it right. Proposal 157 ensures that no more than 20% of the older herring will be harvested in any year, and proposal 158 will prevent the fishery from happening if 80% or more of the mature herring are really just teenagers (age 3 or 4) - because those young fish need the older fish to stick around to show them the way.
The graph on the right indicates the degree to which elder fish were targeted in the 2014 and 2017 study years. This is not a sustainable practice and Proposals 157 and 158 will help.
Industry Proposals
Proposal 159 (Seiners)
Proposal 159 would be bad for subsistence. It would remove ADFG’s obligation to “distribute the commercial harvest by fishing time and area if the department determines that it is necessary to ensure that subsistence users have a reasonable opportunity to harvest the amount of herring spawn necessary for subsistence”. Even though they haven't done anything about it, that obligation has been in place since 2002 and needs to exist to make a pathway for the department to finally support subsistence.
There’s an ongoing lawsuit about this brought by STA, and this proposal should be dismissed until that process is through.
To learn more on this lawsuit, read the story on the right (update to follow).
Proposal 160 (seiners)
Would reduce the size of the small area close to Sitka where the seiners can’t fish. That near-town area is important for subsistence herring roe harvest, and there has been no demonstrated loss to commercial users as a result of the protected area since it was expanded in 2018.
In this map, the pink area represents the area open to commercial fishing, the green area near town is the area closed to commercial use, and the darker part of that is the smaller protected area proposed by the industry.
Here is the current protected area near Sitka as established by combination of the Makhnati Federal Waters and ADFG regulation 5 AAC 27.150 (7).
Here is the much reduced protected area as proposed by industry proposal 160.
Proposal 161
Proposal 161 would require a subsistence fishing permit to harvest herring roe on branches in the Sitka Sound area. There’s no good reason for it. There is ample data and research to demonstrate that subsistence users have suffered from vastly reduced access to herring roe on branches, and there is no reason to penalize subsistence users through bureaucratic process for the harm done by herring seining.
Catch Per Unit of Effort has gone down steeply in the last decade for subsistence small harvesters and high harvesters alike; Sitka Tribe of Alaska has demonstrated that conditions have been on an alarming trend for the last decade.
Proposal 163/164 (Seiners)
Proposal 163 and 164 would both turn the Sitka Sound sac roe fishery into an “equal split” quota system, like the IFQ system for black cod.
That would let the seiners roam the area (from Cape Aspid to Salisbury Sound) for two months, high-grading for the biggest oldest fish they can find.
These proposals will mean that more dead, injured, and stressed out fish will be left in the water, bigger and older fish will be less likely to survive to spawn, AND the economic boost to Sitka will be minimized.
- Proposal 163 would further allow multiple permits to be used by one vessel.
- Proposal 164 would further allow permit holders to over-fish or under-fish the quota by 10% for an equivalent deduction or credit for the next year.
Proposal 165 and 166
Both Proposal 165 and Proposal 166 should be dismissed, given that they represent permit creep of a sort that has no precedent and has been discouraged by the CFEC in recent years.
Proposal 165 would effectively allow for unfished herring quota to be secured "for other usages” from October through February AND would expand the fishing area all the way to Cape Ommaney (instead of Cape Aspid).
Expanding this fishery isn't the answer.
Similarly, Proposal 166 would allow Sitka Sound sac roe seine permit holders to harvest Spawn-on-Kelp in Sitka Sound as an alternative to seining. Without commenting on the merits of open pound SOK fisheries, granting this new privilege to sac roe permit holders would expand the scope of their entitlements to nobody elses benefit.
Actions
On-time Public Comments are due December 22, 2021. Make comments at www.herringcomments.com.
Some Herring Regulations
For reference, here are several of the key regulations guiding the commercial management of herring in Sitka and Southeast Alaska:
For the management of herring fisheries in the Southeastern Alaska Area, the department (1) shall identify stocks of herring on a spawning area basis; (2) shall establish minimum spawning biomass thresholds below which fishing will not be allowed; (3) shall assess the abundance of mature herring for each stock before allowing fishing to occur; (4) except as provided elsewhere, may allow a harvest of herring at an exploitation rate between 10 percent and 20 percent of the estimated spawning biomass when that biomass is above the minimum threshold level; (5) may identify and consider sources of mortality in setting harvest guideline; (6) by emergency order, may modify fishing periods to minimize incidental mortalities during commercial fisheries
(a) In managing the commercial sac roe herring fishery in Section 13-B north of the latitude of Aspid Cape (Sitka Sound), the department shall (1) manage the fishery consistent with the applicable provisions of 5 AAC 27.160 (g) and 5 AAC 27.190 ; (2) distribute the commercial harvest by fishing time and area if the department determines that it is necessary to ensure that subsistence users have a reasonable opportunity to harvest the amount of herring spawn necessary for subsistence uses specified in 5 AAC 01.716 (b). (b) In addition to the provisions of (a) of this section, the department shall consider the quality and quantity of herring spawn on branches, kelp, and seaweed, and herring sac roe when making management decisions regarding the subsistence herring spawn and commercial sac roe fisheries in Section 13-B north of the latitude of Aspid Cape.
(g) The guideline harvest level for the herring sac roe fishery in Sections 13-A and 13-B shall be established by the department and will be a harvest rate percentage that is not less than 12 percent, not more than 20 percent, and within that range shall be determined by the following formula: Harvest Rate Percentage = 2 + 8 [Spawning Biomass (in tons)] /20,000) The fishery will not be conducted if the spawning biomass is less than 25,000 tons.
(a) The Alaska Board of Fisheries finds that the following fish stocks are customarily and traditionally taken or used for subsistence in the following portions of the Southeastern Alaska Area outside the nonsubsistence areas described in 5 AAC 99.015 (a)(1) and (2):
[ommitted here: a long list of fish stocks and how used in each district]
(b) The board finds that 136,000 - 227,000 pounds of herring spawn are reasonably necessary for subsistence uses in Section 13-A, and Section 13-B north of the latitude of Aspid Cape.
Herring may not be taken in [...]
(7) District 13, in the waters enclosed by a line extending from a point on the Baranof Island shore at the O'Connell Bridge at 57_ 02.87' N. lat., 135_ 20.33' W. long., to the northernmost point of Aleutski Island at 57_ 02.74' N. lat., 135_ 20.46' W. long., to the westernmost point of Makhnati Island at 57_ 02.40' N. lat., 135_ 23.48' W. long., to Bieli Rocks at 57_ 05.42' N. lat., 135_ 29.98' W. long., to the northwestern point of Crow Island at 57_ 06.96' N. lat., 135_ 28.57' W. long., to the westernmost point of Big Gavanski Island at 57_ 08.11' N. lat., 135_ 26.13' W. long., to the northernmost point of Big Gavanski Island at 57_ 08.49' N. lat., 135_ 25.21' W. long., to the Baranof Island shore at Harbor Point at 57_ 07.59' N. lat., 135_ 23.37' W. long.
5 AAC 27.059. Management Guidelines for Commercial Herring Sac Roe Fisheries
(a) If the department has adequate information, and if department management programs are in place, the department may manage commercial herring sac roe fisheries, to enhance the value of the landed product as follows:
(1) fishing periods may be established by emergency order in areas and during times when sampling has demonstrated, or when other factors indicate, that the herring roe content of the catch is likely to be highest;
(2) fishing periods may be established by emergency order in areas and during times when sampling has demonstrated, or when other factors indicate, that the catch is composed of the maximum average size of herring available for the stock;
(3) in a preseason management plan, the department shall specify the particular herring fisheries that are to be managed to enhance the value of the landed product.
(b) The department may modify herring sac roe fishing periods and areas to minimize the harvest of recruit-sized herring during the conduct of a sac roe fishery that targets post-recruit herring.
Alaska Constitution - Article 8 - Natural Resources
§ 3. Common Use
Wherever occurring in their natural state, fish, wildlife, and waters are reserved to the people for common use.
§ 4. Sustained Yield
Fish, forests, wildlife, grasslands, and all other replenishable resources belonging to the State shall be utilized, developed, and maintained on the sustained yield principle, subject to preferences among beneficial uses.
