Ommaney and localities near by in Chatham 

 Strait (Port Herbert and Gut Bay, 1927 class) . 



Growth rates were analyzed by using 

 length frequency distributions of individual year- 

 classes by locality. Herring from four localities 

 (Noyes Island area, the Juneau-Icy Strait area, 

 Affleck Canal (Kell Bay) and Todd, Peril Strait) 

 were found to be much slower growing than 

 those of other localities. The Peril Strait her- 

 ring appear to be the slowest growing of any 

 encountered in Alaska. 



Differences in relative proportions of dif- 

 ferent year-classes in localities, if sufficiently 

 marked, may be used as evidence of non -inter- 

 mingling of the stocks. Most localities were 

 characterized by an overwhelming dominance of 

 the 1926-class in both 1929 and 1930 samples. 

 Marked differences in relative proportions of 

 year classes were found in the following local- 

 ities: (1) Noyes Island with an approximate 

 equality of the 1926- and 1927-classes, (2) Peril 

 Strait (Todd) with a marked dominance of the 

 1927-class (10 times as strong as the 1926-class), 

 and (3) Douglas Island, Vicinity of Juneau, with 

 a large preponderance of older fish and actual 

 dominance of the 1923 -class (twice as strong as 

 the 1926-class in 1929). 



Using three lines of evidence (vertebral 

 counts, growth rates and relative proportions of 

 year -classes) the authors found at least six 

 areas to have independent populations . These 

 are: 



1 . Juneau - Icy Strait area - on basis of 

 growth rate and age composition . 



2 . Sitka - Cape Ommaney - Chatham Strait 

 area, the center of the herring fishery in south- 

 east Alaska. 



3 . Noyes Island and West Coast of Prince 

 of Wales Island separated from even such near 

 localities as Warren Island and Coronation Is- 

 land on the basis of vertebral counts, growth 

 rate and age composition . 



4. Inner area of Southeastern Alaska - 

 Wrangell, Anita Bay, etc., on basis of vertebral 

 counts . 



5 . Vicinity of Petersburg - on basis of 

 vertebral counts . 



6. Todd, Peril Strait - on basis of growth 

 rate and age composition . 



The three main spawning grounds in south- 

 east Alaska are located in the first three areas: 

 The spawning area of the Juneau - Icy Strait 

 herring is in the vicinity of Juneau. The spawn- 

 ing grounds of the central group are in Sitka 

 Sound and the feeding grounds of this group are 

 in the Cape Ommaney - Chatham Strait area . 

 The Noyes Island herring probably are spawned 

 at Klawak Inlet (Prince of Wales Island) . 



Rounsefell and Dahlgren (1933) initiated 

 tagging and tag-recovery methods for the Pacific 

 herring. They tried a variety of tags, and found 

 that two kinds held promise, opercle tags and 

 belly tags . In their initial tagging in Alaska in 

 1932 and 1933, they tagged 4,295 fish with belly 

 tags and 4,733 with opercle tags. Recoveries 

 consisted of 108 belly tags and 17 opercle tags, 

 clearly demonstrating the superiority of the 

 former. Dahlgren (1936) reported on more ex- 

 tensive tagging with internal tags during 1934 

 and 1935 . Tagging results through 1935 are sum- 

 marized in table 3 . Recoveries were principally 

 made in the Cape Ommaney region, the center 

 of the herring fishery in southeastern Alaska. 

 A movement of fish from the spawning grounds 

 in the vicinity of Sitka to feeding grounds around 

 Cape Ommaney is clearly demonstrated. Fail- 

 ure to recover fish tagged at Cape Bendel by the 

 Cape Ommaney fishery is indicative of a lack of 

 mixing between herring groups in lower Chatham 

 Strait and in Frederick Sound. Similarly, failure 

 to recover fish tagged at Auke Bay near Juneau by 

 the Cape Ommaney fishery is indicative of a lack 

 of mixing between those two areas. However, 

 less than a thousand fish were marked with in- 

 ternal tags at Cape Bendel and at Auke Bay, hence 

 the results cannot be considered conclusive. 



Populations of herring in British Columbia. - 

 Tester (1937) reported on "populations" of her- 

 ring in the coastal waters of British Columbia. 



His study was based on samples from 19 

 localities from British Columbia coastal waters, 

 divided as follows: seven localities in the Strait 



50 



