yak2you2
2009-02-26 15:31:31
Spend any time on the water at all, and you quickly realize that Herring truly are the lifeblood of the entire ocean ecosystem. Not only do they exist in nearly incalculable numbers at times, but they also show up around Alaska's shores at the perfect moment of spring to mean the difference between life and death for many different creatures that have starved their way through the long hard winters. If you consider a halibut a brick house, then herring are the bricks that it's mostly made out of. Most of our salmon species grow fat eating them. Then there's the bears, the birds, the seals and the sea lions, and on and on. Everything, depends on the herring in one fashion or another, especially the fisherman.
I saw an eagle once make a pass on a school of herring and pick up two nice herring, one in each talon. He quickly swallowed one whole, then flew over and landed on a near by snow covered beach and left the other one on the ground in front of him. There were other eagles walking about right nearby so I thought to myself,"buddy, you better eat your prize or somebody is going to steal it from you", but none of them did. He stood by and nonchalantly squirted out a previous herring, apparantly eagles don't know how to belch, and wandered off. Closer inspection revealed that all the other eagles were waddling about to stuffed even to fly and couldn't care or less about another herring at the moment.
A few weeks earlier, Id seen these same eagles nearly kill each other in fearsome fights over the tiniest scraps of food. Thats the difference Herring makes to Alaska's creatures.
It was interesting to me to sit in on the discussions over various Herring proposals at this spring's board of fisheries meeting, many different users groups presented many different points of view. Having no dog in the fight over any of the existing proposals directly, as there are no commercial Herring fisheries anywhere near the community that I live in and was an advisory committee representative of, I had the unique vantage point of being neutral. I saw good and bad points from all sides.
The only point I would have made if I were the referee of a similar tug o' war is this,,,,"be careful you don't break the line, it happens to be our lifeline."
Some folks seemed to favor local historical knowledge, others seemed to favor scientific data. I have seen both be proven to be right in the past, and I've also seen both be wrong.
So, who's right and who's wrong? Hard to say,,, in my opinion, but I did make this observation. The sac-roe seine fishery is by far the biggest user group, it occurs to me that this is where the work must be done if there is going to be any compromise reached. Now, I respect my fellow commercial fishermen, and more so their right to make a living. I just have two humble thoughts on the matter.
First, when your talking about a species that is so all important as Herring are, I think all would be better off to error on the side of to little use rather than to much right?
Having said that, my second point is, if I were a seiner I wouldn't want my yearly income to fall, but I question does it have to? Meaning Herring roe is kind of a luxury item isn't it? Like caviar? So when you boil it down to what a single serving of Herring roe sells for, is there no room to get paid more for less fish, and make the same amount of money? Have all avenues on this been researched between catchers and processors? I have no idea, it just seems to me like if you could help preserve the fish your making your living on so you have a sound fishery in later years, you'd be money ahead.
One think I do know about, the old excuse that, " will scare them away and they'll eat something cheaper than our product," doesn't cut it with me. If your into eating Herring roe, what are you going to replace it with thats cheaper but tastes as good? Every other place on the planet is facing depleted stocks too, so there's not really anywhere to run off to.
We used to hear that excuse all the time from a handful of lodges that catered to sport fisherman that wanted to continue to reel in 6 Sockeyes per day from our limited stocks on the Situk river. " if they can't fill up their coolers, they'll go to somebody else's lodge." Where? I ask. Bristol bay was the name tossed at me regularly. Yeah Bristol bay has a bunch of Sockeyes, it also happens to be flat as a pancake with not much to look at. So, if all your interested in is filling up your cooler and couldn't care or less about experiencing Alaska for what it really is, I say go to Bristol bay, no offense to the Bristol bay folks by the way. My point is, targeting sportfishermen who are willing to pay the same price for less fish that comes with a beautiful Alaskan experience are the type of sport fishermen our towns need, and I'm just wondering if this shouldn't be the same model used for the Herring roe cliental, and all our commercial species.
I came away from this Board of Fisheries meeting with this as my single most important thought about all the issues I listened in on, It's time for Alaska's commercial fisherman, lodge owners, and charter boat operators to recognize something, we have it, they want it. Everywhere else is out of it, or very nearly. "You want another halibut? well come back tomorrow and will go get another one." " You want to catch enough sockeyes to sell to all your friends when you get back home to pay for your trip, go to Vegas, the drinks are cheaper." "you want to eat Herring caviar, guess what, the days of it being a cheaper substitute to real caviar are gone."
The time has come for all of us to work together and take control of our resources, rather than continue to give it away while were busy bickering with each other.
A special thank you to all who made me feel welcome,
Sincerely, Casey Mapes
Yakutat, Alaska
AKWaterBum
2009-02-26 17:38:20
Great comment!
All User groups should be standing together, working together to sustain all reuseable resources. Not fighting over every little scrape of fish or meat! Greed is the problem. When will the human race figure it out.
We have to stop the exploits of the resources for the bottom line(DOLLAR). And look at the planets eco system. We have raped the Alaska fishing,and Big game hunting. When will we manage the resource for sustainability . When will the lodge and charter boat people figure it out? NEVER. Almost every lodge or charter operator is not from here so why should they care? Where I live,(inside passage) when the charter, lodge fleet is almost midway through the year you can not get a halibut within 30 miles of home. I have places I have fished for food for years and now.No fish. It is obvious why! So let's ALL work together to help ourselves!
Also every body thinks fish and game can fix the problem. Ha! I have seen first hand how F&G manages hunting. Because of money F&G let the guide outfitters shoot out almost all the moose in the Bristol Bay region and other regions, before putting restrictions on the moose. Why? Money!
It does not take a biologist to see there was to many guides and transporters shooting everything that moved!
The same is happening to the fishing. So Let's slow things down. Think about the world. Not just our own pocket books. Yes I know we have to live too. But at the expense of the planet and our children?
I just want to thank Jon for this site it is the greatest thing for the fleet! Keep up the good work!! Aaron.
spike christopher
2010-03-17 06:08:52
What great wisdom, I was involved in the Prince Williams sound herring fishery back in 74, look at it now, same with the kachemak herring and the Kamashak bay,
they are all gone now.
kalitan97828
2010-03-17 15:49:21
Several great posts. I do not think Chatam Strait which had a huge herrring fishery in the 40s and 50s has ever recovered but it is hard to know scientifically if this is a true statement. Such things as increasing numbers of whales and lack of historical biomass data complicate a true assessment. We all should be concerned about the acidifacation of the oceans as krill and other plankton that herring feed on may be in serious danger.
Salty
2010-03-17 17:26:11
I agree, great posts. My father came to Alaska in 1940 on a Herring Seiner. He caught his first King Salmon in Washington Bay on a handline while the seiner was being unloaded.
He wrote letters to both the Territorial govt. and the state in the late 50's and early 60's stating his feeling that the summer herring seine fishery in SE was overharvesting the herring resource.
When I moved to Sitka in 1976 I joined the Sitka Fish & Game Advisory committee in good part to help conserve a herring resource that I thought the state was mismanaging. I learned that one of the great advocates for Sitka and SE herring was local area manager Jim Parker. I think it was his idea but Larry Calvin proposed to the Sitka AC that we establish a minimum threshold for the herring biomass in Sitka before we conducted a fishery. I was secretary of the committee and wrote up the proposal which was submitted to and passed the Alaska Board of Fisheries that winter. I believe the initial threshold was 7,000 tons total herring spawning biomass as estimated by acoustical sounding before we opened the fishery. In 1977 the biomass estimate did not reach 7,000 tons and the Sitka Sac Roe herring seine fishery did not open that year.
Since then the minimum threshold for Sitka herring has been raised to 20,000 tons as estimated by egg deposition. The herring resource has grown from less than the 7,000 tons to some estimates over 100,000 tons spawning in Sitka last year. The quota has gone from 0 in 1977 to over 18,000 tons this year. But, it is crucial to remain vigilant as the herring are a forage fish which will give us first indications of problems both in their abundance and ecosystem problems.
For those of us travelling around SE Alaska every year since the early 50's one of the most wonderful things is how we have rebuilt and sustained our herring and salmon resources. One of our biggest challenges is recognition of the reality of resource abundance or problems. To cry wolf when there is not a problem is as big a mistake as to claim no problem when there signs of stress and depletion.
To me the lesson of Sitka herring is how well a concerned public and the ADF&G and BOF management system can work to rebuild and sustain a resource. It is also an ongoing lesson in how this system will adapt to growing whale predation, possible ocean ecosystem degradation, tribal concerns, and an increasingly overloaded BOF.