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