Herring
Dear Editor: Earlier this year, I happened to be in Farragut Bay off Frederick Sound while herring were in the bay. I’ve never been in a place that felt so alive – seabirds of all stripes, whales, and sea lions, all gorging on herring in full-fledged festival of joyous carnage. I had the same feeling recently, watching mobs of humpbacks and seabirds feast on juvenile herring near town. The fact that herring draw together birds and salmon and whales wherever they go leave me with what feels like an easy conclusion: it is a mistake to pull these forage fish out of the ocean so their roe can be sent to market overseas and their remains (a huge percentage of the total harvested mass) to fish farms down south.
It seems to me that the economic and ecological benefits of leaving herring alone would vastly outweigh the benefits of fishing them. It also seems to me that we probably still don’t understand the oceans well enough to be sure that what we’re doing now won’t be regretted later. As such, I agree with the people who, in reference to traditional knowledge, personal observation, and historic and scientific research, have urged heightened caution in the management of the herring fishery.
Interested in hearing those perspectives, I recently went back to the tapes of the Board of Fish meetings from 20 years ago. I have extracted and labeled the many testimonies delivered by scientists, tribal elders, and subsistence users in their attempts to inspire management strategies more focused on healthy ecosystems, subsistence use, and less wasteful harvest.
I’m excited to share the audio with you – you can access it at http://herring.rocks. The amount of knowledge and experience shared in these testimonies is vast and compelling, and I encourage readers to give them a listen. The elders who gave testimony back in 1997 watched herring populations dwindle across Southeast in recent decades, and learned about healthy ecosystems from their own grandparents, who may have lived to see the first reduction plants installed in the late 1800s. These beautiful testimonies are delivered not out of self-interest or greed, but in the shared interest of everybody living in Southeast Alaska, and in recognition of a shifting baseline for herring. (For more in this vein, I also highly recommend reading Tom Thornton’s Herring Synthesis research, hosted freely online by Portland State University.)
The Board of Fish will be meeting in Sitka in mid-January, and a few proposals regarding herring are on the table. In advance of the January meetings, the local advisory council is meeting this Wednesday at Centennial Hall at 6 p.m. That meeting is a good opportunity to share your concerns or thoughts. At that meeting, I will speak for proposals 98 and 99, which will reduce the guideline harvest level of herring to 10 percent of spawning biomass rather than 20 percent, and also for 105 and 106, which expands the area closed to commercial fishing as suggested by tribal elders. I will also speak against Proposal 94 and 104, which will roll back two regulations which protect subsistence use of herring roe in Sitka.
Peter Bradley, Sitka
Thanksgiving Dinner
Dear Editor: On behalf of the Alaska Native Brotherhood Camp 1, we’d like to express our great appreciation and Thank you to everyone who made donations both monetary and voluntary, in making this a successful 43rd Community Thanksgiving Dinner. A heartfelt thank you to Karen Lucas who spent countless hours coordinating this year’s dinner! Gunalchéesh
George Chappell,
ANB Camp 1 President
