Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

Contemplating the Harvest: Sitka’s Herring Fishery

by | Mar 30, 2012 | Alaska, Commercial Fishing, Environment, Hooked Favorites, Sitka, Sustainability | 20 comments

When Cap’n J and I arrived in Sit­ka last week, we found the har­bor packed with sein­ers, decks loaded with coiled nets, and the air near-elec­tric. As cap­tains and crew paced the docks, I found it easy to imag­ine their boats as equal­ly impa­tient – steel and fiber­glass race­hors­es paw­ing the ground, nos­trils flared as they wait­ed for the gate to open.

On stand­by, wait­ing to go…

Spring in Sit­ka means her­ring. If there’s a South­east Alas­ka run­ner-up to Dead­liest Catch’s rock star mad­ness, it’s this – the Her­ring Sac Roe Fish­ery. You can fol­low the fren­zy from wher­ev­er you are: JuneauTek always pro­vides excel­lent cov­er­age, and Youtube is plugged with testos­terone-drenched videos like this one.  Scenes of com­bat fish­ing, engines scream­ing as boats slam-dance over who’ll set their net in the sweet­est spot. With 48 per­mit-hold­ers and open­ings that last mere hours, com­pe­ti­tion is ferocious.

(I’m told that the Coast Guard is putting their foot down this year. Any boats ram­ming anoth­er, they’ve promised, “We’ll shut this thing right down,” like a fed-up par­ent shout­ing from the car’s front seat. Sure. But cow­boy cul­ture is hard to police. Walk­ing through the har­bor, I notice boats neck­laced with neon chains of rub­ber buoys, their bows so thick with inflat­able cush­ion­ing that the vessel’s name isn’t visible.)

Antic­i­pa­tion fur­ther height­ens the inten­si­ty. On Mon­day, the Alas­ka Depart­ment of Fish & Game put the fleet on two-hour notice. Biol­o­gists take dai­ly test sam­ples of roe, mon­i­tor­ing the eggs’ matu­ri­ty lev­el. When that lev­el reach­es 11%, ADF&G will give the fleet the green light, allow­ing at least two hours’ notice for every­one to jock­ey into posi­tion before the gun goes off. Man­age­ment biol­o­gist Dave Gor­don shares updates on the day’s find­ings over the VHF radio. Yes­ter­day, he summed up the slow roe devel­op­ment with a call for con­tin­ued patience. “We will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the dis­tri­b­u­tion of fish.”

I don’t have any con­nec­tion to this fish­ery, yet even I’m caught up in the excite­ment, eager to wit­ness an explo­sive exo­dus from the har­bor. Her­ring is a Big Deal, and nev­er more so than this year. After last year’s then-record quo­ta of 19,430 tons, ADF&G deter­mined past cal­cu­la­tions had under­es­ti­mat­ed the bio­mass.  The 2012 quo­ta sky­rock­et­ed to a new high: 28,829 tons.

Vet­er­an sta­tus in one fish­ery doesn’t make you knowl­edge­able in anoth­er. With my sea­sons lim­it­ed to trolling, longlin­ing, and shrimp­ing, the XtraTufs on my feet and crew license in my wal­let are all I share with a her­ring deck­hand’s expe­ri­ence. Trollers drag their hooks around for up to 18 hours a day, striv­ing to catch at least 100 coho, one fish at a time. The long­lin­ers I’ve crewed on have fished rel­a­tive­ly small quo­tas – 15,000 pounds of hal­ibut here, 20,000 pounds of black cod there. And my shrimp­ing mem­o­ries are fond rec­ol­lec­tions of the mel­low­est ocean-labor I’ve had. Com­ing from such com­par­a­tive­ly small pota­to ven­tures, I found it impos­si­ble to con­cep­tu­al­ize almost 29,000 tons of herring.

I wasn’t the only one. Jeff Feld­pausch, the Sit­ka Tribe of Alaska’s Resource Pro­tec­tion Direc­tor, asked him­self what that num­ber real­ly meant. What does 57 mil­lion pounds of her­ring look like?

Imag­ine a foot­ball field… Over 20 feet high.

Imag­ine the Empire State Build­ing… 77 times as tall.

The Sit­ka Tribe released a series of ads protest­ing the quo­ta as exces­sive, and Jeff spoke with Raven Radio, fur­ther explain­ing the con­cerns. Her­ring are what’s known as a key­stone for­age fish – that is, a vital part of the marine ecosys­tem. A crit­i­cal food source for salmon, hal­ibut, and hump­back whales, her­ring are the only for­age fish that’s com­mer­cial­ly har­vest­ed in Alaska.

“What hap­pens if you cut out the bot­tom of the food chain?” Jeff asked. “Every­one above collapses.”

If her­ring’s val­ue in the ecosys­tem is near-price­less, I fig­ured, its eco­nom­ic val­ue must be astro­nom­i­cal. But that’s a tough one to gauge. Vir­tu­al­ly all of this fish­ery’s catch is shipped to Japan, where the sac roe — kazunoko — is a high-end tra­di­tion­al food, a New Year’s del­i­ca­cy. After much spec­u­la­tion on how last year’s tsuna­mi would impact the mar­ket, the whole­sale val­ue fell $500/ton, crash­ing down to $150-$200/ton. This year’s price remains an unknown.

Kazunoko: a Japan­ese New Year’s del­i­ca­cy. Pho­to from www.tastefood.info

Beyond Japan’s rav­aged infra­struc­ture, some fear their food cul­ture is chang­ing. Tlin­git elder Ray Nielsen believes kazunoko is a declin­ing mar­ket. “The young peo­ple, they eat at McDon­ald’s. There’s no mon­ey in this any­more. It’s just an ego fish­ery now. Every­one wants the big sets.”

As I sat at the Back­door Café con­sid­er­ing all this, a friend noticed the Tribe’s fly­ers on my table. “Pro­pa­gan­da,” she scoffed. “There’s a lot of fish out there.”

Maybe. I hope so. ADF&G points out that the quo­ta is only 20% of the bio­mass; using the foot­ball exam­ple, the remain­ing her­ring will tow­er over 80 feet above the field. And as a troller, all of my expe­ri­ence with ADF&G has been pos­i­tive. I’m impressed with their salmon man­age­ment, thank­ful that their strict super­vi­sion has con­tributed to abun­dant runs and a strong indus­try. I have no rea­son to doubt their biologists.

But excess in all forms makes me anx­ious. A lit­tle voice deep with­in cries, What if we’re wrong?

Art by Ray Troll.

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t speak from first-hand knowl­edge, and reg­u­lar Hooked read­ers know I’m sen­si­tive to the notion of “enough.” So what do you think? Wher­ev­er folks fall on this issue, it’s one we should con­sid­er. Your expe­ri­ences and obser­va­tions are wel­come here; thanks for keep­ing it civil.

20 Comments

  1. Pat Dixon
    Pat Dixon on March 30, 2012 at 9:12 am

    How could erring (pun intend­ed) on the side of cau­tion be wrong? Those 48 boats stand to make a ton of cash, espe­cial­ly com­pared to the aver­age SE troller or Cook Inlet gill­net­ter, even if the quo­ta stayed the same as last year. “What if” w’re wrong? I am glad for the biol­o­gists who run the fish­ery, but I don’t think for a sec­ond that they’ve fig­ured out all the vari­ables that impact fish stocks. They’ve his­tor­i­cal­ly been wrong waaay more times than they’ve been right. Good arti­cle. Thought-pro­vok­ing. Still, I’d LOVE to come see the rodeo some day.

    • Tele
      Tele on March 30, 2012 at 10:09 am

      Thanks for start­ing the dis­cus­sion, Pat! I’m right there with you — uneasy, cau­tious, won­der­ing about the long-range vision — yet some­how attract­ed to the spec­ta­cle of it all. When Joel and I got up here, we were all excit­ed to see the show. Still feel that way, but with a dawn­ing sense of greater com­plex­i­ties than we were aware of.

  2. coldwetnormal
    coldwetnormal on March 30, 2012 at 9:34 am

    Tele:
    Well artic­u­lat­ed with all those ques­tion marks that don’t point, but remind us to keep ques­tion­ing and not take the sim­ple roads.

    • Tele
      Tele on March 30, 2012 at 11:01 pm

      Ellen, thanks for encour­ag­ing this post when it was just a vague thought of unease. Maybe you’ve found this to be true in your own work… Seems like some of the stuff that’s hard to talk about become more nat­ur­al when we put more atten­tion to ques­tion­ing than deter­min­ing. Look­ing for­ward to con­tin­u­ing the con­ver­sa­tions and learn­ing more.

  3. Jason Miller
    Jason Miller on March 30, 2012 at 10:58 am

    Great post,

    I have a ten­den­cy to agree with some of the STA con­cerns, this fish­ery has become a shell of it’s for­mer self, and the intent of the fish­er­men who start­ed this fish­ery over 40 years ago has been lost. The mar­ket price is poor, time to try new prod­uct forms, or don’t fish the entire quo­ta, rather than sat­u­rat­ing the mar­ket with prod­uct peo­ple don’t want or will­ing to pay for. It has become a testos­terone dri­ven fish­ery. The ADFG and it’s biol­o­gists are the best in the world, but to err is human.

    • Tele
      Tele on March 30, 2012 at 12:53 pm

      Thanks so much for your con­tri­bu­tion, Jason. Did I under­stand cor­rect­ly that you grew up in this fish­ery? I’d love to hear more about the his­to­ry and that orig­i­nal intent you men­tioned. Do the cur­rent 48 per­mit-hold­ers include many guys from the fish­ery’s ear­ly days? Why do you think the fish­ery has changed? What’s your sense from oth­er sein­ers — con­cerns, no prob­lem, mixed?

  4. kathrynmartins1
    kathrynmartins1 on March 30, 2012 at 11:51 am

    Hey Tele. I feel that being con­ser­v­a­tive when it comes to any­thing liv­ing is the way to go. Those her­ring won’t be swim­ming any­more, nor feed­ing those oth­er fish. I get a bad feel­ing in my stom­ach when it comes to ego fishing/hunting or fishing/hunting in excess. 

    You know those hot dog con­tests to see who can eat the most? And then they throw up after­wards? How can you have even a sur­face knowl­edge about hunger and not be out­raged? Sorry…Excess leaves me with a ter­ri­ble taste. 

    I don’t mean to preach. But i feel that as liv­ing beings we should only end the lives of what can and will sus­tain us. No more. No less. I feel that a true fish­er­man’s heart is one that val­ues & respects the sea and all it con­tains. I know that you and Cap’n J oper­ate that way, as well as many fish­er­men. But we vary in as many ways as we intersect.

    What to do? You are right to wor­ry. And you are right to be curi­ous about any spectacle. 

    I hope they are right, too. You, Cap’n J and Bear take very good care.

  5. andrew thoms
    andrew thoms on March 30, 2012 at 1:17 pm

    It does­n’t seem to make a lot of busi­ness sense to har­vest so many more fish when the demand/price is decreasing.
    I’m also wor­ried about tak­ing for­age fish that are at the bot­tom of the food chain and are so crit­i­cal for the rest of the ecosystem.
    I want to trust ADFG and their sci­ence, but we just had a 33% increase because of an ERROR that they made in one tiny aspect of their mod­el (micro­scope inter­pre­ta­tion of fish ages). What if there is anoth­er mis­take wait­ing to be found that means we should be decreas­ing the har­vest by 33%?

    • Tele
      Tele on March 31, 2012 at 10:39 am

      Very valid points, Andrew. I’m hear­ing a lot of talk on the dock about the schism of flood­ing the decreased mar­ket when demand is so (com­par­a­tive­ly) low. Def­i­nite­ly a lot of folks watch­ing to see how this year will shake out.

  6. patriciasands
    patriciasands on March 30, 2012 at 2:51 pm

    The men­tion of these errors cer­tain­ly gives one cause for pause. Good for you for the ques­tions you raise, Tele. Your blog is such an edu­ca­tion. I’m so look­ing for­ward to host­ing you over on mine and, guess what? I LOVE this about the blo­gos­phere … today I host­ed Claire McAlpine, a blog­ger I fol­low who lives in Aix En Provence. We met through my posts about France. I noticed on her site that she fol­lows you too! So we then had a chat about how awe­some your blog is … coin­ci­dences like this make me feel good all over.

    • Tele
      Tele on March 31, 2012 at 10:45 am

      Thanks for chim­ing in, Patri­cia! I’d won­dered if this one would­n’t be a bit too “fishy” for Hooked’s land-based read­ers, and def­i­nite­ly appre­ci­ate your (and oth­ers’) indul­gence in stay­ing with me through these more indus­try-based obser­va­tions. Seems like an impor­tant thing, hav­ing these con­ver­sa­tions with a larg­er, more diverse pool of folks. 

      That’s a fan­tas­tic con­nec­tion with Claire, and I’m delight­ed to hear that she was one of your guests! I’ll look for­ward to jump­ing over and read­ing that one. You’re so skilled at facil­i­tat­ing con­nec­tions, Patri­cia, mak­ing the blo­gos­phere a warmer, friend­lier neigh­bor­hood! Thanks for hav­ing such a strong com­mu­ni­ty spirit.

  7. herbchikes
    herbchikes on March 30, 2012 at 4:39 pm

    Always appre­ci­ate your insights. Thanks

  8. herbchikes
    herbchikes on March 30, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    Always appre­ci­ate your insights, thanks.

    • Tele
      Tele on March 31, 2012 at 10:37 am

      Nice to hear from you, Herb — I’ve been won­der­ing how you and Lau­ra are doing, what you’re up to these days. Hope all’s well.

  9. Marian
    Marian on March 30, 2012 at 8:09 pm

    Accord­ing to Dave Gor­don, this is a very imper­fect sci­ence, but he is oblig­at­ed to jus­ti­fy the quo­ta based on the data they have. The Cana­di­ans have done some genet­ic research and the her­ring of SE AK are all one genet­ic group. It used to be that there were huge spawns all up and down Chatham. There are no longer enough for com­mer­cial har­vests any­where there. Some areas have crashed in the past. It appears that the con­di­tions in Sit­ka Sound right now are good for these her­ring, but why not let nature con­trol them? Why go above the 13,000 tons that used to be the high har­vest. Seems very unwise to me.

    • Tele
      Tele on March 31, 2012 at 10:34 am

      Scary stuff from Cana­da. I have a bud­dy orig­i­nal­ly from BC, who shared this post with her friends; am hop­ing that we’ll hear from some of them on their expe­ri­ence. I keep hop­ing we’ll start learn­ing from others…

      Mar­i­an, you made a real­ly good point about Dav­e’s oblig­a­tions. Folks out­side of our indus­tries don’t have a con­cept of how these quo­tas and man­age­ment plans come to be, that it’s the Board of Fish­eries hand­ing a deci­sion down to ADF&G to imple­ment and enforce. Tough posi­tion to be in… I don’t envy Dave or Pat­tie their jobs.

      Always good to hear your per­spec­tive, Marian.

  10. Steve l
    Steve l on March 31, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    Hi Tele, I am now on board with your blog. I enjoyed read­ing your thoughts and the ensu­ing dis­cus­sion on the her­ring fishery.

    • Tele
      Tele on March 31, 2012 at 6:52 pm

      Steve — so nice to have you on board! Wel­come, friend.

  11. L Jackson
    L Jackson on April 1, 2012 at 9:59 am

    The arrival of her­ring in Sit­ka marks the arrival of Spring in South­east Alas­ka, so the thrill of it all goes WAY-WAY-WAY beyond just catch­ing a her­ring. From the git-go, her­ring strikes off the years fish­ing sea­sons, and har­vests from the sea, land & air. It is a way of life that only a few are blessed to know & now con­tin­ue to live.… I miss it with all my heart, but my tired out body could nev­er do the fish­eries any­more. The her­ring go to Gods coun­try first to feed the peo­ple! Have a Great Fish­ing Sea­son & May Our Cre­ator Bless you with good health & much happy-ness.

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