Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

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.