Project Information

Title: PWS Herring and Monitoring Program 16120111

Project Year and Number: 2016: 16120111

Other Fiscal Years and Numbers for this Project: 2021: 21120111, 2020: 20120111, 2019: 19120111, 2018: 18120111, 2017: 17120111, 2015: 15120111, 2014: 14120111, 2013: 13120111, 2012: 12120111

Principal Investigator (PI): Scott Pegau

Managing Agency: NOAA

Assisting Personnel: None

Project Website: https://pwssc.org/herring/

Research Location: Prince William Sound

Restoration Category: Monitoring, Research

Injured Resources Addressed: Pacific Herring

Abstract:

The goal of the Herring Research and Monitoring program is to improve the predictive models of herring stocks through observations and research. The program is designed around a twenty year time frame with changes in emphasis of the process studies every five years. During this period we have four objectives to help us move towards our goal.They are: Provide information to improve input to the age-structure-analysis (ASA) model, or test assumptions within the ASA model. Inform the required synthesis effort. Address assumptions in the current measurements. Develop new approaches to monitoring. A combination of monitoring and process studies will be used to address these objectives. The monitoring projects follow changing conditions and provide inputs to modeling efforts. The process studies are designed to be much shorter and to answer a very specific question.  The monitoring components include tracking the prevalence of disease, aerial surveys, increased adult biomass surveys, and juvenile condition and biomass surveys. All of the monitoring components address the first objective. There are eighteen studies that range in length of one to five years designed to address the different objectives. To address the first objective we are examining the age that fish join the spawning stock, the genetic structure, and examining the approaches available to model herring stocks. To address the second objective we are working on gathering relevant datasets and providing visualization, conducting an analysis using the herring scale library owned by ADF&G, and providing coordination between projects to examine the connectivity.To address the third objective there are intensive studies of juvenile condition and acoustic estimates of juvenile populations, trying to determine if immigration may impact our surveys, providing validation to the acoustic surveys, and conducting laboratory studies of disease. We are looking to herring tagging, disease forecasting, and non-lethal acoustic validation to address the last objective.


Proposal: View (2,080 KB)

Reports:
Final Report: View (354 KB)

Publications from this Project: None Available