Since the herring spawn returned to Indian Arm in 2019, the Treaty, Lands & Resources Department (TLR) has led efforts to monitor, evaluate, and steward the population, with the long-term aim of harvesting fish and roe to bring back to the community.
In 2024, we started small-scale attempts to harvest fish and roe. In 2025, following a Knowledge Exchange in Bella Bella with the Haíɫzaqv Nation, we used our knowledge to scale up our efforts with more boughs in the water.
In spring 2026, we saw the most work yet, led by TLR’s Land, Water and Environment team. The work was completed over several days, one day to deploy the logs into the water and multiple days to set boughs and check for spawn. We increased the amount of spawning habitat, from 12 to 30+ boughs this year to support increasing herring activity in Indian Arm.
With the support of the Field Crew, boughs were collected from xʔəl̓ilwətaʔɬ (the Indian River Watershed) and set in known spawning habitats. The initial spawn was observed on the west side of Crocker Island, where 28 boughs were set at various sites, in hopes that the herring would spawn on the boughs. During follow-up snorkel surveys, roe were observed on a small run of logs and boughs. (Success!!!)
Multiple harvest days had been planned with no success. In early May, a second spawn began, which was short and quick.
We look forward to continuing to learn about the returning herring population and growing TWN’s access to more traditional foods. We celebrated the work in early June 2026 with a community BBQ.
Thank you to all who attended!
