|
In Southeast, the West Behm Canal fishery last was opened 25 years ago. Increasing biomass estimates led to a 2003 assessment over the minimum threshold established by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for a commercial fishery, and to the reopening of the fishery with a harvest set for 940 tons.
The fishery will be open for alternating harvests between the 51 permitholders from the nearby Sitka Sound sac roe fishery and a fleet of 115 gillnetters. The seiners will fish as a cooperative to reduce the number of participating boats.
This year's Sitka Sound sac roe herring harvest will be the fourth-largest in the history of the fishery, at 10,618 tons. The fishery usually takes place in late March.
|
The figure was revised after a Jan. 17 sampling for the herring's weight-at-age.
"We do this every year," Gordon said. "The reason is, during the summer season, it varies year to year how successful they are. We have the data necessary to run a model by fall and come up with a preliminary estimate."
Fish and Game provides the preliminary estimate, expected to be off somewhat from the final guideline harvest level, to help processors, buyers and seiners plan for the year ahead.
"The industry wants to have some idea of what kind of quota to expect," Gordon said. "It makes a big difference whether they need to secure tender contracts. So since 1992, since we've been using this particular model, in order to get the best estimate of size of herring for that age, we sample in the winter. There's usually not much change from the fall estimate."
The Jan. 17 sample from a school of herring caught by the Fish and Game vessel F/V Medea showed the herring are not as heavy as they were for the same time last year, he said.
"There's nothing alarming about that," he said. "It's natural to have varying growth rates from year to year."
This year's population consists predominantly of 4-, 5- and 6-year-old herring.
Buyers are rumored to be adding as much as $100 per ton to last year's price of $400 per ton.
In Bristol Bay, Fish and Game set the Togiak quota at 17,658 short tons for seiners and 7,568 tons for gillnetters, up from 15,457 tons and 6,624 tons last year.
Statewide harvest quotas have been set around 42,000 tons in the past three years, while unharvested portions during the same three years have climbed from 6 percent to 2003's 19 percent, according to National Fisherman magazine.
Since the 1990s, ex-vessel prices have dropped in all harvest areas. In Togiak, the ex-vessel price has dropped to about $150 per ton.
Southeast this year will hold two new herring pound fisheries. Eggs on kelp are expected to draw around $7 per pound. Pounds are opening at both Tenakee Inlet and Earnest Sound, near Klawock.
Harvestable quantities of Pacific herring are found from Alaska's southern boundary at Dixon Entrance to Norton Sound. Herring spawn in nearshore areas and deposit their eggs on intertidal and subtidal vegetation, where they are harvested in many areas for subsistence.
Spawning begins as early as late March in southern Southeast Alaska and continues through mid-July in the northern Bering Sea.
Gulf of Alaska herring are genetically distinct from Bering Sea herring and are smaller and non-migratory, generally moving less than 100 miles among spawning, feeding and wintering grounds. Bering Sea herring are much larger and longer-lived. Most travel to offshore central Bering Sea wintering grounds, with some herring migrating over 1,000 miles annually.
Sac roe fisheries harvest herring just before spawning with purse seine or gillnet gear. Herring are transferred to tenders, which deliver the herring to large, Japanese "tramp" freighters. The roe is removed from the females, and their carcasses, along with the males, are made into fish meal.
The roe is salted and packaged as a product that can sell for more than $100 per pound in Japanese markets. In recent years the Alaska sac roe harvest has averaged about 50,000 tons, most of which ends up in the Japanese marketplace.
Spawn-on-kelp fisheries harvest herring eggs after they are deposited on vegetation. Naturally spawned eggs are collected by divers from brown kelp in Prince William Sound, and by rakes and by hand in intertidal areas at Togiak. At Craig and Hoonah Sound in Southeast Alaska and in Prince William Sound, herring spawn-on-kelp is harvested from herring that have been confined in pounds. In these fisheries herring are captured by purse seine and transported to net enclosures. Herring are released from the pounds after they have spawned on the kelp fronds suspended in the pounds.
The commercial catch of herring for bait in Alaska began around 1900. Average harvests have been about 8,000 tons in recent years.
Shannon Haugland at the Daily Sitka Sentinel contributed to this article.
We encourage you to add your comments. To prevent spam, comments with links are manually approved during the normal business day. Please be respectful of others with your comments, bear in mind anyone in the community may be reading your comments.
