August 19, 2025 — Kelp aquaculture operations are rapidly expanding in Alaska and coming into increasingly greater contact with wild marine species.
In an attempt to limit some of the interactions between Alaska’s aquaculture operations and wild species, researchers have outlined strategies to prevent Pacific herring from spawning and laying eggs on kelp farmed at aquaculture farms along the state’s coast.
February 16, 2021 — Just two seiners and one gillnetter participated in the 2020 herring season in Togiak, Alaska. With a guideline harvest of 38,749 metric tons (MT), it is believed those that participated did well, though exact harvest data will remain confidential due to rules allowing the participants not to report catch data with fewer than five vessels partaking in the harvest.
Elsewhere in Alaska, the Sitka sac roe fishery struck out last year after managers and the industry decided the fishery should remain closed for its second year in a row. The predominance of herring recruiting into the fishery have been three-year-olds. With weights of about 90 grams per fish, buyers aren’t interested in the tiny egg skeins for salted roe markets in Japan.
November 16, 2018 — Atlantic herring is a hearty source of protein for people and marine mammals alike, but like a startling number of Canada’s fish stocks the plan to rebuild the depleted herring population is currently one big question mark.
That’s a conclusion reached by advocacy group Oceana Canada, which published its second annual fisheries audit Tuesday — a report card assessing the health of Canada’s fish stocks.
The report found Canada has a lot of work to do to reverse the term decline of its fish stocks, and it needs to pick up the pace.
Oceana’s science director Robert Rangeley said he hopes the audit is a “wake-up call” for better fisheries management.
“My biggest fear is one of complacency,” said Rangeley. “We’re still hovering around one-third of our fish stocks (that) are healthy, which is very poor performance for the 194 stocks that are so important for coastal communities.”
Only 34 per cent of Canada’s fish stocks are considered healthy. Twenty-nine per cent are in a critical or cautious zone, and perhaps most alarmingly, 37 per cent of stocks don’t have sufficient data to assign a health status.
Some, like Pacific herring in Haida Gwaii, slipped into the critical red zone this year.
The numbers are indicative of the slow policy implementation that plagues management of Canada’s fisheries, Rangeley said. The Oceana team expected to see more stocks move from the uncertain zone into one of the other categories this year, but in fact, the needle barely moved