Daily Sitka Sentinel

Virus, Size Casts Shadow Over Herring Fishery

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is continuing to prepare for the 2020 Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery, but the largest buyer said today that it does not plan to participate this year.
    Fish and Game has set the guideline harvest level at a record 25,824 tons, based on a forecast of a 212,000-ton mature herring biomass.
    The forecast is for 83 percent of the returning fish to be age-4 herring, with an average weight of 92 grams.
    Last year no openings took place for commercial sac roe harvest because Fish and Game fishery managers were unable to find areas with schools suitable for fishing.
    The year before, in 2018, only 3,000 tons was harvested from a 11,169-ton GHL.
    Rich Riggs, with Silver Bay Seafoods, a major purchaser of the Sitka Sound sac roe harvest, said the decision of his company not to participate as a buyer this year was based on a number of factors, including the small fish size and the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in Asia.
    “Silver Bay Seafoods has been working with fishermen to gather input and evaluate available information ahead of the 2020 herring season,” Riggs said. “Given the forecast size of the available herring, as well as the potential adverse impact the coronavirus could have on the market’s ability to purchase and reprocess a meaningful quantity (a significant quantity of Sitka herring is re-processed in China before going to Japan), we feel it is best served to forgo participation in the 2020 fishery, and process again in 2021 when the primary age classes available will be solidly of marketable size and hopefully the new variable of the coronavirus is well behind all of us.”
    Riggs said the company also will not participate in the Togiak sac roe herring fishery.
    An indication that this year’s fishery was in doubt occurred at the Sitka Assembly’s special meeting Thursday night, when a Port and Harbors Commission member said this would be the second year in a row that a commercial sac roe opening wouldn’t be held in Sitka Sound.
    ADF&G Acting Area Management Biologist Aaron Dupuis said today that he has not received official word from processors that they will not buy herring from this year’s run in Sitka Sound.
    “To my knowledge those decisions haven’t been made or if they have they haven’t been relayed to the department,” he said, although he’s aware of the rumors.
    “If someone says they want to harvest them, we’ll manage the fishery,” Dupuis said.
    Between five and eight processors participate in the fishery, depending on the year.