• Overview
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• Statewide Management
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• History

Commercially exploitable quantities of Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi) occur in Alaska from its southern boundary at Dixon Entrance (55° N) to Norton Sound (64° N) (herring populations graphic). Herring spawn in nearshore areas and deposit their adhesive eggs on intertidal and subtidal vegetation. Spawning begins as early as late March in southern Southeast Alaska and continues through mid July in the northern Bering Sea. Gulf of Alaska herring are genetically distinct from Bering Sea herring (Grant and Utter 1984) and are smaller and non-migratory, generally moving less than 100 miles among spawning, feeding, and wintering grounds. Bering Sea herring are much larger and longer lived. Most travel to offshore central Bering Sea wintering grounds, with some herring migrating over 1,000 miles annually (Funk 1990). Herring are planktivores and provide a key link in pelagic and nearshore food chains between primary production and upper-level piscivores. [more]

[Based on excerpts from the publication, Commercial Fisheries in Alaska, Woodby et al. Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Special Publication 05-09, June 2005 (PDF - 1,059K). Information or data on this web page may have been updated and may no longer match the original publication.]

• Recent Harvest and Status
• Historical Herring Data and Charts

Harvest policies used for herring in Alaska set the maximum exploitation rate at 20% of the exploitable or mature biomass, consistent with other herring fisheries on the west coast of North America. The 20% exploitation rate is lower than commonly used biological reference points  for species with similar life history characteristics (Funk 1991). In some areas, such as Southeast Alaska, a formal policy exists for reducing the exploitation rate as the biomass drops to low levels. In other areas, the exploitation rate is similarly reduced, without the formal policy. In addition to exploitation rate constraints, minimum threshold biomass levels are set for most Alaskan herring fisheries. If the spawning biomass is estimated to be below the threshold level, no commercial fishing is allowed. Threshold levels are generally set at 25% of the long-term average of unfished biomass (Funk and Rowell 1995).

Unlike most other Alaskan fisheries, fishery managers actively manage the sac roe fishery to obtain the highest-valued product possible. An intensive sampling program is used to monitor the condition of the ripening females, and fishery managers use this information to carefully time fishery openings down to days or even hours before the main spawning event.

Most herring fisheries in Alaska are regulated by management units or regulatory stocks (i.e., geographically distinct spawning aggregations defined by regulation). Those aggregations may occupy areas as small as several miles of beach or as large as all of Prince William Sound. Herring sac roe and spawn-on-kelp fisheries are always prosecuted on individual regulatory stocks. Management of food/bait herring fisheries can be more complicated because they are conducted in the late summer, fall, and winter when herring from several regulatory stocks may be mixed together on feeding grounds distant from the spawning areas. Where possible, the BOF avoids establishing bait fisheries that harvest herring from more than one spawning population. For historically-developed food/bait fisheries that harvest more than one regulatory stock, such as the Dutch Harbor or Kodiak fisheries, BOF regulations close the food/bait fishery if any of the component spawning populations are below threshold. Where there is more than one fishery on a spawning population, the BOF allocates specific percentages of the annual allowable harvest to each fishery.

For sac roe fisheries, openings are timed to occur when herring have produced the maximum amount of roe. The duration of openings is also set to achieve harvest quotas as closely as possible. Entry into most herring fisheries in Alaska has been limited under the authority of CFEC.

[Based on excerpts from the publication, Commercial Fisheries in Alaska, Woodby et al. Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Special Publication 05-09, June 2005 (PDF - 1,059K). Information or data on this web page may have been updated and may no longer match the original publication.]

Herring have supported some of Alaska’s oldest commercial fisheries, and subsistence fisheries for herring in Alaska predate recorded history. The spring harvest of herring eggs on kelp or hemlock boughs has always been an important subsistence resource in coastal communities throughout Alaska. Traditional dried herring remains a major staple of the diet in Bering Sea villages near Nelson Island (Pete 1990) where salmon are not readily available.

Alaska's commercial herring industry began in 1878 when 30,000 pounds were caught and prepared for human consumption. The early European settlers in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska caught herring and preserved them with salt in wooden barrels, as they had done with herring from the North Sea. Salted and pickled herring production for food peaked after World War I, when about 28 million lb (12,700 mt) were harvested annually (figure of historical herring sac roe harvests).

Reduction fisheries which “reduce” herring to meal and oil began initially in Southeast Alaska, where a plant at Killisnoo in Chatham Strait was producing 30,000 gallons of herring oil annually by 1882. During the 1920s herring became increasingly valued for oil and meal. Herring reduction plants sprang up along the Gulf of Alaska from Craig to Kodiak near locations where concentrations of herring could be found. Harvests during the 1920s and 1930s, as high as 250 million lb (113,400 mt) per year, were probably too high and may have caused the stocks and fisheries to decline. During the 1950s, lower-cost Peruvian anchoveta reduction fisheries severely impacted the oil and meal markets. Alaskan herring reduction fisheries quickly declined, and the last Alaska herring reduction plant closed in 1966.

A Japanese and Russian trawl fishery for herring began in the Bering Sea in the late 1950s, reaching a peak harvest of 320 million lb (146,000 mt) in 1970. These high harvests were likely not sustainable and the foreign fishery declined until it was finally phased out following the passage of the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976.

Substantial catches of herring for sac roe began in the 1970s as market demand increased in Japan, where local herring harvests had declined dramatically. Presently, herring are harvested primarily for sac roe, still destined for Japanese markets.

The commercial catch of herring for bait in Alaska began around 1900 and remained relatively stable, typically 4–6 million lb (1,800–2,700 mt) per year, in spite of very large fluctuations in the herring catch for the reduction, foreign, and sac roe fisheries. The development of extensive crab fisheries in the 1970s greatly increased the demand for herring bait.

[Based on excerpts from the publication, Commercial Fisheries in Alaska, Woodby et al. Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Special Publication 05-09, June 2005 (PDF - 1,059K). Information or data on this web page may have been updated and may no longer match the original publication.]