Nancy Keen, right, Vivian Mork, Marvin Willard and Rosita Worl, left, protest outside the Dimond Courthouse as a court hearing between the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the Department of Fish and Game on herring limits in Sitka Sound takes place inside on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2019. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)

Nancy Keen, right, Vivian Mork, Marvin Willard and Rosita Worl, left, protest outside the Dimond Courthouse as a court hearing between the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and the Department of Fish and Game on herring limits in Sitka Sound takes place inside on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2019. (Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)

Opinion: Return stewardship of the herring to the people of Sheet’ka Kwaan

Once the herring are gone, they’re gone.

  • By K’asheetchlaa Louise Brady
  • Thursday, March 10, 2022 4:09pm
  • Opinion

K’asheetchlaa Louise Brady

The Board of Fish is meeting to tinker with the Sitka Sound Sac Roe fishery this week. The Sac-Roe industry has long been criticized as a wasteful misuse of the herring; the roe from mature females is exported as a foreign delicacy, but the remaining 90% of the fish are ground into cheap fishmeal, if they’re utilized at all. It’s like hunting a herd of deer only to harvest the liver. Maybe it’s time to start calling the industry what it is — the fishmeal industry. Public sentiment clearly reflects that it is time for this fishery to change — the vast majority of public comments before the Board of Fish this year call for reducing the currently unsustainable herring harvest levels. But despite these criticisms, a biomass assumptions that haven’t been updated since 1997 and a skewed age structure where 69% of the entire population is estimated to be from a single age class, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has set a Guideline Harvest Level of 45,000 tons, the largest ever.

Sitka Tribe of Alaska has proposed a few modest changes to this management regime: sound proposals that would result in more herring being left in Sitka Sound where they belong, to feed our communities and power our marine ecosystems. These proposals would especially protect the mature, females that guide reliable spawning behavior and keep herring coming back to Sitka year after year. But even if the board adopts all of STA’s proposals, it won’t resolve the fundamental problem with this fishery, which is that culturally, ecologically, economically significant forage fish simply shouldn’t be ground into fish meal.

On the other hand, the Sac-Roe/fishmeal industry has submitted several proposals attempting to limit subsistence access, while ham-handedly trying to remove the guardrails to their own industry at the expense of subsistence users and the larger ecosystem that our communities and other commercial fisheries rely on.

While we hope that the board votes in favor of STA’s proposals and opposes the Sac-Roe/fishmeal industry’s, the state of Alaska must also recognize that this fishery is fundamentally and fatally flawed. Ask the people of Juneau, Ketchikan or Kake where their herring went? In a few decades, ADFG has collapsed once abundant herring populations across Southeast Alaska: Kah Shakes, Lynn Canal, Hoonah Sound, Tenakee Inlet, Auke Bay, West Behm Canal, Ernest Sound, Hobart Bay, Chatham Strait, Seymour Canal, Yakutat Bay, Cat Island, Icy Straits — all gone. Lingít and Haida people successfully stewarded herring in these places for 10,000 years before ADFG inserted themselves in 1959. But the populations ADFG collapsed haven’t recovered; once the herring are gone, they’re gone.

Imagine showing up on someone else’s land and fishing 12 out of 14 herring populations to death, and then having the audacity to tell the original inhabitants of the land that they can’t manage their own fishery. Take a second to imagine what it would feel like if someone raided your freezer, threw 85% of it in the trash, and then corked your last best fishing spot. How would you feel? This is what is happening to subsistence herring users.

The only true solution is moving toward tribal stewardship. The board has the responsibility to vote to reduce the harm being perpetrated against people and ecosystems that depend on herring. But the State must recognize that it can’t solve the fundamental conflict at the heart of the Sac-Roe industry, except by returning control to the rightful stewards of these fish. Until then, there will be conflict, and great risk of continued herring collapse. It’s time to return to an approach with 10,000 years of proven history. Return stewardship of the herring to the people of Sheet’ka Kwaan.

• K’asheetchlaa Louise Brady is Kik’sadi of the Point House, a Herring Lady, and founder of the Herring Protectors. Matt Jackson is a community organizer around climate change and decolonization, and has been organizing with Herring Protectors since 2016.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.

More in Opinion

Web
Have something to say?

Here’s how to add your voice to the conversation.

The Aiviq, a private icebreaker the U.S. Coast Guard is considering purchasing for Arctic operations with Juneau as its home port, is seen on March 24, 2012. (Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard)
Opinion: Giving credit where credit is due

It’s been a long time since the Juneau economy has been bolstered… Continue reading

Gus Schumacher, an Anchorage cross-country skier, testifies at a Senate Budget Committee hearing last Wednesday. (Budget committee screenshot)
An Alaska Olympian went to D.C. to testify on climate change. Then a senator dredged up old tweets.

Gus Schumacher hit with climate science quiz in exchange that went viral in conservative circles.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, second from right, attends a bill signing by President Donald Trump on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House photo)
Opinion: Sen. Dan Sullivan, a conservative in name only

It’s easy to imagine Sen. Lisa Murkowski broke out in a smile… Continue reading

(Anne Onamuss / For the Juneau Empire)
My Turn: Alaska’s deepest trouble is nonsupport of education

People are exiting The Great Land and are reluctant to come here… Continue reading

The studio model of Starship “Enterprise” from Star Trek is on display at The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on its reopening on Oct. 14, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Opinion: No Alaska governor has ever so boldly held schools and students as political hostages

“Star Trek” reference looks past real argument for school funding.

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Letter: Black-and-white view of Gaza goes too far

Alexander Dolitsky’s letter rebuffing Dixie Belcher’s attempt to humanize the tragedy unfolding… Continue reading

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Letter: Murkowski and Sullivan should oppose Trump

The New York Times reported Saturday that Mr. Trump said, “some migrants… Continue reading

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Letter: If you see roadside rubbish, please pick it up

I met a young Tlingit lady and her friend this weekend, picking… Continue reading

Looking up at the 1882 Edward Webster House on Telephone Hill from Second Street and Main Street in January 2024. (Photo by Laurie Craig)
Opinion: Juneau Assembly holds firm on Telephone Hill development

In a rare moment of near unanimity during a special Assembly meeting… Continue reading