Herring Scrap 43: (Ending) A Model Fishery in Bad Relations pt. 1

...I wanted to know the secrets of the claims, to see if they held water, and why they didn't...

Herring Scrap 42: From the Surface to the Understory (Egg Counting in British Columbia)

The Penticton Herald ran a story on January 21, 2026 describing the conflict about herring in British Columbia in familiar terms: The core issue driving the conflict is a growing divide over the science itself. Federal stock assessments classify BC herring as “healthy,” while Indigenous and conservation groups point to

Herring Scrap 41: A Deadline-day Comment on Canada's Draft Plan for Pacific Herring

Today, November 17th, is the deadline for comments to Fisheries and Oceans Canada regarding their DRAFT Pacific Region Integrated Management Plan 2025-2026 for Pacific Herring. I've submitted the comment below and would like to share it with you in case you'd like to comment yourself. I

Herring Scrap 40: Thesis the Days of My Life

Progress on the thesis was steady and good this summer, and now I'm stranded in the uncanny valley that lies between the first complete draft and the final draft. It clocks in at 120 pages and some of the sections are a bit raw yet, but the thing exists and is right there, and I almost like it.

Herring Scrap 39 - Certifiably Fishy

This certification will allow expanded access to markets and subsidies for an expanded array of herring products, and promises more pressure on herring in Alaska. It will apply to a full possible range of future herring fisheries in a variety of Alaska locales that have scarcely been studied at all.

Herring Scrap 38 - The Rule of Three

Back in 2022, before herring scraps went online in this format, I wrote in Herring Scrap 11 about the "rule of three" which can trigger the confidentiality of commercial fish harvests if there are three or fewer fishers or processors participating in a fishery. With a new merger

Herring Scrap 37: Alaska Herring Bureaucracy Roundup

You haven't heard from me for a while. I want to tell you about a series of meetings that offered dispiriting conclusions to the threads that I've described regarding Herring Revitalization Committee (which I talked about in scrap 23 and scrap 28 and, sort of, scrap

Herring Scrap 36 - On Expanding Commercial Fishing Access to Prince William Sound & Kayak Island

As the Southeast Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting begins, I'd like to tell you about what the Board of Fisheries did back in December at their meeting for Prince William Sound. They transformed the regulatory structure of herring fishing there through three major policy moves, and I think

Herring Scrap 35: Ova-estimating // Hubris

Two days after the deadline for comments for the upcoming Board of Fisheries meeting in Ketchikan, Alaska Department of Fish and Game quietly revealed last week that they now believe that last year's forecast biomass of Sitka herring was an overestimate by double. ADF&G buried that

Herring Scrap 34: Pen Pals 2 (Alaska Public Records Act Request, 1984)

As I wrote in the previous scrap about my Alaska Public Records Act request, 1984 was the only year for which I received most of the information needed to make sense of the nature of the spawn deposition surveys in the years with suspect data. Notably, '84 was the

Herring Scrap 33: Pen Pals Pt. 1 (An Alaska Public Records Act Request)

Back in Scrap 30, I sent a letter to ADF&G about why I think the recent Unfished Biomass study is falsely premised and needs revision - I'd noticed a signal in the data that suggested that the data might not have been based on observational studies

Herring Scrap 32: State of Scraps

Hello scrappers! I haven't posted anything in awhile, but I've written a whole lot since you last heard from me, so much that the scrap machine got a bit clogged. I've got several mostly done scraps in the hopper, but there's been

Herring Scrap 31 - Buffalroe Biomasstrology

The other day I was poking around in a bookstore and I spotted John Williams' novel Butcher's Crossing (1960), a grisly novel depicting an 1870's buffalo hunt. A young academic from the east coast travels west, inspired by Emerson, looking for a connection to nature,

Herring Scrap 30 - An Open Letter to the Authors of the Unfished Biomass Simulation Study

A letter to ADF&G staff describing the low quality and inconsistent historical data serving as the foundation for the Simulation Study to Determine Unfished Biomass of herring in Sitka

Herring Scrap 29 - Charting The Harvest Level Proposals

This scrap is dedicated to the volunteer members and meeting-goers of Sitka's Local Advisory Committee to the Board of Fisheries. They've been meeting every week for a few weeks now (mostly about salmon so far) and will be meeting every week for a few weeks more

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Herring Scrap 28 - Herring Revitalization Committee pt 2

Back in March, I posted a scrap explaining the emergence of a State of Alaska policy vehicle called the Herring Revitalization Committee (HRC). It seemed that the point of the committee, before it even began, was designed to promote the "restructuring of the Alaska herring resource." I was

Herring Scrap 27: Deriving a Threshold from Unfished Biomass

In Scrap 26, I explained that Unfinished Biomass doesn't actually factor directly into the math driving this fishery, but is conceptually linked to the threshold level (below which fishing won't happen). What I didn't make clear is the jurisdictional reason for this flimsiness: while

Herring Scrap 26: Unfished Biomass

A new ADF&G report imagines that these are unparalleled times for herring abundance in Sitka. Can they really claim that?

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Herring Scrap 25: Impressions of a Season in Sitka

... about herring spawning season as I witnessed it this year in Sitka...

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Herring Scrap 24

Tales from the Channel Light...

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Herring Scrap 23

The Herring Revitalization Committee and "The Restructuring of the Alaska Herring Resource"

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Herring Scrap 22

OR Swim Bladders of The Sky

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Herring Scrap 21

OR A Short History of Herring Counting in Sitka pt 2

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Herring Scrap 20

OR: A Short History of Counting Herring in Sitka pt 1