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Top1. Introduction: Measuring Success In Alaska Herring Fisheries Management
When combined with historical ecological analyses of the co-evolution of human societies and ecosystems, the application of GIS and use of spatial analysis has the potential to reveal long-term dynamics and vulnerabilities in key species populations. To date the potential to combine the integration, visualisation and analysis capabilities of GIS with traditional ecological knowledge to improve management of and decision making processes related to marine resources has been limited (cf. Aswani & Lauer, 2006; Thornton & Maciejewski Scheer, 2012). Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) is a biological and cultural keystone species (Garibaldi and Turner, 2004; Paine, 1995) for Southeast Alaska Indigenous marine ecosystems. As forage fish and prey for many species, herring play a foundational role in the marine food web. Herring support large populations of predatory fish, mammals, and seabirds, especially during their spring spawning aggregations in protected coastal areas of Southeast Alaska, of which Sitka Sound (Figure 1) is the most productive by far. As a cultural keystone species among the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples of Alaska, herring are considered a highly significant component of subsistence production, trade, ritual and expressive culture. Among Sitka Natives, they figure prominently in oral history, names, songs, dances, regalia and other at.óow, or sacred property.
Figure 1. ADF&G management areas with openings and closed years. Areas of Southeast Alaska actively managed for commercial herring sac roe fishing are outlined in the map. Most areas are closed, despite having been fished in the past, raising questions about sustainability. Sitka Sound supports the largest herring spawning population by far, but there are concerns about its health and resilience, especially as spawning has become more concentrated in space and time
Significant declines in herring abundance occurred as a result of heavy commercial herring reduction fishing (1882-1966) to produce industrial oil, livestock feed, and fertilizer (Hebert, 2012; Rounsefell, 1930, 1931; Thornton et al., 2010a; Woodby et al., 2005).Many Natives believe that local spawning populations of herring have never fully recovered from the heavy reduction fishing era, and thus remain vulnerable to the newer, intensive commercial sac roe fisheries which now dominate production, yielding salted roe, or kozunoko, for Japanese markets. The sac roe seine fishery, which kills herring at the cusp of spawning in order to harvest the roe skeins from pregnant females, commenced in the late 1970s and has grown significantly to serve the international market. Fishing quotas in Sitka Sound alone climbed to more than 28,000 tons in 2012, more than 50 times those set in 1976, when the first herring population assessments were carried out by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (Table 1) (USFW, 2012).