Opening of Behm Canal herring sac roe fishery will be first in 25 years
Board of Fisheries OK for reopening based on evidence stocks have grown in past decade
KETCHIKAN - The first commercial herring sac roe fishery in more than 25 years will open in West Behm Canal next year, the state Department of Fish and Game said.
The Kah Shakes area, south of Ketchikan, however, will remain closed because of low herring stocks.
Commercial gillnet herring fishermen will have a quota of 940 tons when the West Behm Canal fishery opens in late March or early April, said Phil Doherty, the state's Ketchikan-area commercial fisheries biologist.
The department announced the quota last week, based on a general management plan approved in January by the Alaska Board of Fisheries.
There hasn't been a commercial herring sac roe fishery in West Behm Canal since 1976, although Fish and Game test fisheries have taken between 12 tons and 100 tons of herring there annually since 1996.
The board approved reopening the commercial sac roe fishery based largely on evidence that herring stocks in West Behm Canal have been improving in the past decade.
During the early 1990s, the department's annual forecasts of mature herring in West Behm Canal ranged from 283 tons to 3,854 tons. The forecasts jumped in the late 1990s to a range of 6,500 tons to 16,000 tons.
The forecast in 2001-02 was 11,188 tons.
Fish and Game estimates the size of herring stocks based on studies of caught herring and dive surveys of the eggs deposited by the fish when spawning.
By combining the data, the department forecasts the amount of mature herring expected to return to spawn in the following year.
When the board approved reopening West Behm Canal, it set a threshold of 6,000 tons, meaning commercial fishing can occur only when the department's forecast of the next year's mature herring is at or above that level.
Threshold levels are based on the historical performance of that stock, Doherty said. One goal of using thresholds for determining when harvests can occur is to maintain herring populations at or above those levels, he said.
"Just as importantly, I think, is to maintain an adequate supply (of herring) for commercially important predator species such as salmon and noncommercial predator species such as mammals," he said.
Lawrence Carson, chairman of a citizen organization called Ketchikan Area Herring Action Group, is opposed to opening the West Behm Canal commercial fishery because he doesn't believe there are sufficient stocks.
"If we wipe this resource out, it'll be a shame," he said.
The 2004 forecast is for 9,366 tons.
Doherty said the board-approved management plan allows a conservative percentage of the herring stock to be caught when the stock is above the threshold level.
For 2004, the percentage is 11.1 percent for West Behm Canal, or 1,040 tons. The commercial gillnet herring fleet will be able to take 940 tons, while the other 100 tons are reserved for a winter bait fishery established by the board in January.
A total of 115 people have the state-issued limited-entry permits required to participate in commercial gillnet herring fisheries in Southeast Alaska.
The board's management plan rotates the fishery between the gillnet and purse seine herring fleets. Gillnetters get the first shot in 2004, and seiners will harvest in 2005 if the stock forecast is above the 6,000-ton threshold.