Editor’s note: These letters were written to the Empire by fourth graders from Hoonah in Mark Browning’s class for Herring Week. Their style deviates slightly from typical Letters to the Editor.
The danger of overfishing
Dear People of Alaska,
Hello, I’m Ashley Johnson, and we are having trouble here in Hoonah Alaska, and so are the herring. Herring are going missing because fishermen are overfishing. If we don’t have herring, then the sea animals will be gone! If the sea animals disappear then we will have nothing to eat because we mostly eat sea animals.
The thing we need to do is to keep the big herring alive and not kill them in the commercial herring fishery. We should leave the herring eggs alone. Then maybe eat the big herring but not all of the big herring. Because we need the big herring to lead the little herring to spawn. The small herring don’t know where to go. If we don’t have older herring to guide the small herring. Another argument for keeping herring alive is herring connect to all the ocean animals in the food chain. We need to keep the herring alive because the herring connect to all the sea and ocean animals. Fishermen go out and fish. Then they catch about 100-1,000 herring and they sell them for money, and then the people who buy the herring, they sell some of the herring but not all. Then the rest of the herring that that person did not sell, goes to waste. Then if you do overfish then, we will run out of food and then we can die.
If you want to help, please write a letter to this address,
Alaska State Senator:
Jesse Kiehl-
Session Contact
State Capitol Room 419
Sincerely,
Ashley,
Fourth grader from Hoonah, Alaska
Our herring need help
Dear Alaskans,
Hello, my name is Ava. I live in Hoonah Alaska, and I need to tell you something about herring.
The first reason we need to stop overfishing is that the young herring need the older herring when it is time to migrate. We should stop fishing herring so numbers can go up so there can be more older herring. Eggs on kelp is better than sac roe fisheries because sac roe fisheries are killing female herring . Unfortunately, commercial fishing is just killing most of the herring to get the eggs or just the fish itself. They don’t use hemlock branches or kelp to save most of the herring. Instead, they just strip them when they have not even laid the eggs. They kill herring.
The next reason we should save the herring is that the herring is a keystone creature of the food web. The whale that eats the salmon that eats the herring will die too if the herring go extinct.
Our herring need help. Can you imagine a life without sea life? Well, it would stink. Now imagine life with all the herring back. The herring would lay eggs all along the coastline. There would be eggs everywhere on the beaches. If you want that to happen, make a letter for the fisheries this is their mail address is:
Juneau AK, 99801 Alaska Board of Fisheries
Alaska Department of Fish and Game
P.O. Box 115526
1255 W. 8th Street
Juneau, AK 99811-5526
Make a letter to convince them to free the herring from their misery. Let the herring have hope for their existence. Fisheries board wouldn’t want to threaten herring as a species anymore.
Sincerely,
Ava
Fourth grader from Hoonah, Alaska
Here’s why we need older herring
Dear Fishies Board,
Hey, my name is Gabriel and I want to tell you a couple things about the herring here in Alaska. Here are some things I’m going to tell you about the herring here in Hoonah, Alaska and why we should save the herring.
The first reason we should save the herring is that the First Nation needs the herring. They eat herring eggs because that is what their ancestors ate back in the day. And they don’t want to just throw away the food that their ancestors wanted them to eat on koo’eex or other things. I still eat herring eggs today like my ancestors did. Here is one reason we need to change the fishing regulation reason. We need the older herring. If we catch all of the big herring, then the new herring won’t know where to go and spawn. And the herring population is already going low so why fish even more for herring. When we don’t fish for big herring as much and wait for like two or three years, then we can fish as much as we do now, we’ll still have a lot more herrings then we used to. The last way we need to save the herring is to realize the eggs on branch or kelp is a better choice than the sac roe fishery. Because if other people want to go fish for some salmon or something, then they can’t because the salmon eat the herring, but the herring has already gone extinct. Herring have already been caught by the sac roe fishery. The sac roe fishery has already killed the herring for their eggs. Dead herring can’t lay eggs.
You guys have to stop the overfishing all of the herring so all of the animals in the sea. And we even depend on it. Because if the ocean is dead then we might starve to death.
People from Alaska, if you want to help send a letter back to this address.
Bert Stedman-
Session Contact
State Capitol Room 518
Juneau AK, 99801
Thank you,
Gabe,
Fourth grader from Hoonah, Alaska
Our village and state are in ‘big trouble’
Dear First Nations of Alaska,
This is from Joseph. I need your help. Our village Hoonah is in big trouble and so is Alaska. We need to save the herring. They are important to people for the herring eggs. The herring are important to all creatures of the sea and land.
I want to explain about why we need to save the herring . Eggs on branch is better than Sac Roe Fisheries because we are sharing it with our community. We share with everybody in this whole town and the commercial fishermen don’t know why they should share because their people are bragging because they have Herring. It is because they are not sharing. The boats are catching the Herring, and they waste the herring all the time. I think here’s why we need to stop catching the Herring. They can also eat a lot of things and they can do a lot of things. They can play around but they have to watch out for the killer whales. Salmon eat herring and killer whales eat salmon. The herring have to look out for the whales. If the herring die, many creatures will die too. We need to fix this because if the herring is dead what would we do. For two months eat dead stuff or would we die instead. If you don’t want this bad stuff happening, I need you to help me to save the herring.
If you want to help my village and others, please write a letter to this Alaska law maker. Tell them to help us save the herring.
Bert Stedman-
Session Contact
State Capitol Room 518
Juneau AK, 99801
Joseph,
Fourth grader from Hoonah, Alaska
My village is having a herring problem
Dear People of Alaska,
Hello there, my name is Taylour, and my village Hoonah is having problems with herring, and I would like to tell you about it.
These are the reasons we need to protect the herring. The herring is the keystone species, so we need to protect them. Almost all the animals in the ocean feeds on them. If you take out a small thing like herring the entire ecosystem will fall apart. Harvesting the eggs on branches is way better than sac roe fishery because you don’t kill the herring. The Native herring fisheries put hemlock branches or kelp into the water and harvest the eggs, then share with family members and friends. All the herring swim away alive. Commercial Fisheries throw nets into the water and capture millions of fish at a time, then they strip the eggs from the females, ship them to Japan and then sell the bodies to use as food for farm raised fish. If they keep this up, we’re in trouble, and so are herring. The fishery is targeting the bigger herring. We shouldn’t take all the bigger herring and leave the little ones because little herring need the bigger ones to spawn. Because the litter fish are new to spawning, and can’t find their way back to spawning grounds. And the bigger fish know the way and show them, but with the bigger fish going the little herring are following other types of fish into fresh water and are dying. So more and more places where the herring used to always go are not going there anymore.
If you would like to help us in this situation please send a letter like this to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, their address is:
P.O. Box 115526
1255 W. 8th Street
Juneau, AK 99811-5526
Sincerely,
Taylour
Fourth grader from Hoonah, Alaska
The herring problem is all of Alaska’s
Dear Alaskans,
My name is Tank. I live in Hoonah Alaska, and we have a big herring problem. Its so big that in fact it isn’t even ours it’s all of Alaskas and its big, bigger than Alaska itself, we have a herring problem all the herring in Alaska could go extinct here’s why …The sac roe herring fishery is killing all the herring 100% percent of all the herring being caught are not being used and just being killed. And The herring is the keystone species to the marine food web. I think we should stop fishing for them. All the creachers in the waters from here to the waters in New England rely on herring. All the way from other fish to the mighty killer whale There is so little herring that it’s possible for them to go extinct. Herring is a keystone species so thay need to be protected. A keystone species is a species that if you take that species out everything that eats it will die. So We need to stop overfishing the herring and listen to our scientists. If we keep overfishing the herring an important species could go extinct because they would be dead. Then after they are dead we are dead so we’re pretty much killing ourselves.
If you want to help here’s what to do just writ or type a letter to:
Alaska Department of Fish and Game
P.O. Box 115526
1255 W. 8th Street
Juneau, AK 99811-5526
Tank,
Fourth grader from Hoonah, Alaska
• Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.