Project Information

Title: Herring Spawn Deposition and Reproductive Impairment 94166

Project Year and Number: 1994: 94166

Other Fiscal Years and Numbers for this Project: 1998: 98166-CLO, 1997: 97166, 1996: 96166, 1995: 95166, 1994: 94166-1

Principal Investigator (PI): John Wilcock (Alaska Department of Fish & Game)

Managing Agency: NOAA

Assisting Personnel: Evelyn Brown, Ed Debevec

Research Location: Prince William Sound

Restoration Category: Monitoring

Injured Resources Addressed: Pacific Herring

Abstract: Pacific herring in Prince William Sound (PWS) provide important forage for many marine mammals, marine birds, shorebirds, halibut, salmon, and other fish. Commercial and subsistence herring harvests represent substantial contributions to local economies. Research has been conducted on Pacific herring in PWS from 1989 through 1992. No herring research was conducted in 1993. The apparent crash of the PWS adult herring population in 1993 renewed interest in pursuing herring research for restoration following the EVOS. This project, aimed at improving the accuracy of fisheries management of the PWS herring stocks, is a continuation of previous studies as well as a cooperative effort with other on-going research programs. The accurate and precise estimation of herring abundance in PWS will allow fishery managers to make adjustments to fishing quotas to harvest the maximum available surpluses with the lowest possible risk of over harvest and additional damage to herring populations, or of under harvest and economic loss to local communities. The biomass of PWS herring will be estimated, egg loss rates quantified, and estimates will be incorporated with data from previous studies to revise the models as necessary.


Proposal: Not Available

Reports:
Annual Report FY94: View (2,027 KB)
Final Report: View (29,616 KB)

Publications from this Project: None Available

Datasets:
EVOSTC Data Archive: Diver estimates of egg numbers and metadata, including vegetation, substrate, transect location, depth, tide height. Also includes information on egg mortality and egg loss due to predation and wave removal. Rbase; Lotus worksheets and Excel spreadsheets, ASCII, MapInfo. Availability: Data are available for all years thru 1995.