Once-Prized Togiak Herring Has No Buyers
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Back in the late 1990s, herring caught commercially off of Togiak, an Inuit village in the Dillingham Census Area of Southwestern Alaska, was worth over $1,000 a ton. And with an allowable catch of 20,000 tons, it would fetch fishermen $20 million.
“In the heyday of the 1990s there were 300 seine boats and 500 gillnetters,” Tim Sands, area management biologist at Dillingham for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said.
An ADF&G announcement released on Jan. 13 put the total allowable 2025 harvest at 45,761, but as of Jan. 27, there were no buyers, Sands said.
With no buyers to purchase the commercial harvest, a ton of herring has no value, he said, adding that the last Togiak commercial herring fishery to have buyers was in 2022.
The historic size of Togiak herring was close to 400 grams and with the big herring, there was value not just in the roe, but the carcass, Sands said.
Competition is coming from Hokkaido, Japan, where the gillnet herring fishery has rebounded in the Sea of Japan coast of Hokkaido.
The 2025 mature herring biomass forecast at Togiak of 228,807 short tons is the fourth highest forecast since 1993. Under a 20% exploitation rate, the 2025 potential harvest is 45,761 short tons in all fisheries and 41,163 short tons in the Togiak sac roe gillnet and purse seine fisheries.
Due to the lack of a fishery in 2023 and 2024 there was no age, sex, weight and length data with which to run the standard statistical catch-at-age model, according to ADF&G officials.
Source: https://fishermensnews.com/once-prized-togiak-herring-has-no-buyers/