February 15, 2018 — Despite three days of impassioned testimony before the Board of Fisheries in January, not much has changed for the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery, which will ramp up in about a month.
Local subsistence harvesters won an increase in the size of their exclusive use area, but failed to persuade the board to reduce the commercial catch.
Fishermen and processors from Petersburg joined with other commercial interests to remind the board of the economic importance of the annual springtime export.
Commercial fishing representatives at January’s meeting testified in oral and written comments about the economic importance of the annual fishery in Sitka Sound.
Icicle Seafoods processes some of the catch at its Petersburg plant and the company’s John Woodruff talked about the impact to the Petersburg economy.
“Last year, we spent roughly $450,000 just on Sitka herring labor,” Woodruff said. “Most of this stays in Petersburg and it comes at a time when there’s not much other economic activity in town and a half-million bucks might not seem like much but at that time of year for a town like Petersburg, I think it’s impactive.”
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