F&G Seeks Regulation Reducing Herring GHL

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Category: News

Created on Wednesday, 05 February 2025 13:48

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By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
    With about a month to go until the return of herring to Sitka Sound, the Department of Fish and Game has announced a guideline harvest level of 36,720 tons for the commercial fishery.
    The figure is far lower than last year’s because a smaller return of fish is predicted, Fish and Game said.
    However, department data indicates that the 2024 preseason estimate of the herring run was considerably higher than what the actual numbers were.
    This year’s 36,720 GHL is 20 percent of the estimated 183,599 tons of returning fish. In 2024 over a two-week period in March and April, the seine fleet caught 12,678 tons of herring out of a record high 81,246-ton GHL. The forecast of last year’s biomass was 406,228 tons.
    After observing last year’s fishery from both sea and air, Fish and Game management biologist Aaron Dupuis said he expects this year’s estimate to be close to the correct figure.
    “Based on what I saw last year for the herring spawn and what we saw for abundance, I would say that this year’s forecast is probably going to be pretty close to what it actually is,” Dupuis said over the phone on Tuesday.
    Dupuis said much of the overestimate last year stemmed from a single age class of fish whose numbers were less than predicted.
    “The age four component in last year’s forecast was quite a bit higher than it actually turned out to be. So this year kind of represented a correction of that,” Dupuis said.
    In a press release in late January, the department said the actual herring return in 2024 was likely around half of what was predicted.
    “There was a notable decrease between the forecast of mature biomass in 2024 (406,228 tons) from the 2024 forecast model and the model-estimated mature pre-fishery herring biomass in 2024 (202,134 tons) from the 2025 forecast model,” Fish and Game wrote. “This was due largely to a revised estimate of age-3 recruitment in 2023 compared to what was presented in the 2024 forecast and an estimated decrease in survival for 2022–2024.”
    The state Board of Fisheries is presently meeting in Ketchikan and has a slew of herring-related proposals on the table before them. Two of those originated from Fish and Game and aim to lower the maximum GHL for the Sitka Sound sac roe fishery from 20 percent of the returning biomass to 15 percent at most. The department’s proposals, Numbers 171 and 172 in the board packet, would likewise tie the GHL to estimated biomass and lower the minimum GHL to 10 percent, down two points from the current number, when the fish are at a low abundance.
    “Based on recent research, and as a precaution recognizing that harvest rate strategy evaluations have not been completed for Southeast Alaska herring stocks, the department recommends a sliding scale harvest rate of 10 to 15 percent,” Fish and Game stated in their second proposal.
    “It’s like a sliding scale,” Dupuis said of the department’s proposals. “So as you approach the threshold, the harvest rate goes down. As biomass increases past the threshold, the harvest rate goes up incrementally. I think it’s a pretty good conservative measure, because it’s saying, ‘Hey, you know, as we’re getting closer to these low biomass levels, we’re going to ratchet back harvest.’”
    A Board of Fisheries proposal written by Sitka Tribe of Alaska, Number 176, suggests capping commercial herring harvest to 10 percent of spawning biomass, rather than 20 percent.
    “Robust forage fish populations are critical to withstand climate change impacts and other ecosystem perturbations. Reducing the maximum allowable harvest rate on herring will help ensure forage fish populations are able to support ecosystem needs,” STA’s proposal reads.
    Another proposal before the board, submitted by the Herring Protectors, a Sitka-based group, suggests lowering the maximum GHL and raising the minimum biomass of fish in order for a commercial fishery to take place. The current minimum biomass threshold under which no fishery would occur is 25,000 tons.
    “The maximum Guideline Harvest Level for the herring sac roe fishery in (Sitka Sound) is 5,000 tons,” the proposal suggests. “In years where the spawning biomass is less than 100,000 tons, the guideline harvest level is 2,500 tons. The fishery will not be conducted if the spawning biomass is less than 50,000 tons.”
    Another Herring Protectors proposal, Number 190, asks the board to mandate co-management of the herring fishery between the state and local tribes such as STA. Under that proposal, “the appropriate Tribal Government may call for an emergency closure at any time if in-season indications make such closure necessary.”
    Dupuis expects the board to discuss herring-related proposals around the end of this week and into the weekend. Changes adopted by the board go into effect in June of 2025 and therefore wold not impact this year’s fishery.