Author: Kyle Peter Hebert

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 37

ISBN-13:

Pacific herring in Southeast Alaska and Yakutat are harvested for subsistence, personal use, and commercial purposes. Subsistence products include whole herring and spawn on branches or kelp; commercial fisheries occur for food/bait, sac roe, and spawn on kelp. At times, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game conducts test fisheries for research and cost recovery. Commercial fisheries account for most harvest, which peaked during the reduction fishery in 1929/30 with 78,749 tons. Large-scale reduction fisheries operated during 1890s-1967. A winter bait fishery has generally occurred every year since the turn of the century. The sac roe fishery became the dominant fishery beginning in 1971. A wild spawn-on-kelp fishery occurred between 1963 and 1969, with a closed pound fishery authorized by the Alaska Board of Fisheries beginning in 1990. The management strategy for herring combines a sliding scale harvest rate and minimum biomass threshold to determine allowable harvest levels. Harvest rates may be set between 10% and 20% of forecasted mature biomass when above threshold, except in Sitka Sound where harvest rates may be set between 12% and 20%.