Commercial Herring - North Coast
For official Fishery Notices, visit our Fishery Notices site.
See below for north coast Current Fishery Information for Herring Gillnet and Herring Seine.
Pacific
herring are an oceanic species that are found in both the inshore
and offshore waters of the North Pacific. In the eastern Pacific
they range from California to the Beaufort Sea. Herring reach
spawning maturity predominantly between ages two and five. Recruitment
to this spawning stock tends to occur at younger ages in southern
waters, and older ages in the north. In the North Coast Area,
the Prince Rupert District (PRD) herring stock and the Queen
Charlotte Island (QCI) herring stock are two of the five major
B.C. herring stocks. The fishery began here at the turn of the
century but did not become extensive until the expansion of
the dry-salted fishery in the 1930's and a reduction fishery
in the 1940's. The stock declined as part of a coastwide stock
collapse from overfishing in the early 1960s, resulting in the
close of the reduction fi shery
in 1967.
Following a combination of favourable environmental conditions
and a low harvestrate, the stock recovered by the mid-1970s.
The current roe fishery began in 1972. Currently, the target
harvest rate of herring is fixed at 20 percent of the forecast
mature stock biomass, when the stock size is sufficiently above
the threshold or minimum desired spawning stock (referred to
as the cutoff level). Recent assessments indicate that the mature
herring biomass in both PRD and QCI remains well above the cutoff
level, and should continue to sustain a modest fishery.
![](/web/20061101025626im_/http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/northcoast/images/herring.jpg)
Current Fishery Information
Herring Gillnet
Information of upcoming openings will be updated as it becomes available.
Herring Seine
Information of upcoming openings will be updated as it becomes available.
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