Let’s Go Fishin’: Halt to Sardine Fishery

State and federal agencies came to an agreement to stop all large volume harvest of sardines as a consumable resource until July of 2016.
The decision was made in late April, when the Pacific Fisheries Management Counsel proposed the decision to the National Marine Fisheries Service, along with California Fish and Wildlife.
The ban was also proposed along the northern coast of Oregon and Washington, as the fishery has been actively co-managed by the Council, NMFS, CDFW, and the Fish and Wildlife agencies for Oregon and Washington.
The Pacific sardine resource is assessed annually, and the status information is used by the PFMC during its annual management and quota setting process. The PFMC adopted the 2015 stock assessment — including the biomass projection of 96,688 metric tons — as the best available science.
Current harvest control rules prohibit large-volume sardine fishing when the biomass falls below 150,000 metric tons. The Council recommended a seasonal catch limit that allows for only incidental commercial landings, and fish caught as live bait or recreationally during the 2015-16 season.
The decrease in biomass could be attributed to many factors — possible changes in ocean temperatures could have negatively impacted the production of the species. While the estimated population size is relatively low, the stock is not considered overfished.
The early closure of the 2014-15 fishing season, and the prohibition of directed fishing during the 2015-16 season, are intended to help prevent the stock from entering an overfished state. 
California’s historic sardine fishery began in the early 1900s, peaked in the late 1930s, and then declined rapidly in the 1940s. A 20-year moratorium on the directed fishery was implemented in the late 1960s. In the 1990s, increased landings signaled the population’s recovery. Numbers have since dropped again, significantly.
This has an impact locally, as a large percentage of commercial sardine landings have taken place here in the Monterey bay. The majority of California’s commercial sardine landings occur in the ports of San Pedro, Monterey, and Moss Landing.
The Pacific sardine fishery continues to be a significant part of California’s economy at times. With the fishery’s recent peak in 2007, 80,000 metric tons of Pacific sardines landed, resulting in an export value of more than $40 million.
This may be a large sum of money for the fishery and the state, but the Monterey Bay has had to sacrifice much of the load. Sardines are low on the food chain, and serve as an important food source for many local fish and mammals.
With proper management, many people hope for rebounding stocks of sardines to keep the Bay healthy, and in future years we may see the biomass rebound.