West Coast fisheries managers will likely shut down sardine fishing this year as numbers decline, echoing a previous collapse that decimated a thriving industry and increasing worries that other species might be withheld from the commercial market.

Fishermen are resigned to not being able to get sardines, but they hope the Pacific Fishery Management Council will not be so concerned that it sets the level for incidental catch of sardines at zero, shutting down other fisheries, such as mackerel, anchovies and market squid, which often swim with sardines.

Sardines were a thriving fishery on the West Coast from World War I through World War II, and the cannery-lined waterfront in Monterey, California, became the backdrop for John Steinbeck's 1945 novel, "Cannery Row." The fishery industry crashed in the 1940s, and riding the book's popularity, Cannery Row became a tourist destination, with restaurants and hotels replacing the canneries.

The industry revived in the 1990s, when fisheries developed in Oregon and Washington waters. Today, there are about 100 boats with permits to fish for sardines on the West Coast, about half the number during the heyday. Much of the catch, landed from Mexico to British Columbia, is exported to Asia and Europe, where some is canned, and the rest goes for bait. West Coast landings have risen from a value of $1.4 million in 1991 to a peak of $21 million in 2012, but are again declining.

"The industry survives fishing on a complex," of species, said Diane Pleschner-Steele, director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, which represents 63 California-based fishing boats. "Sardines, up until this point, have been one very important leg of a three- or four-legged stool.... Now we don't have sardines. Our fleet is scrambling."

The latest estimates of how many Pacific sardines are schooling off Oregon, California and Washington have fallen below the mandatory cutoff line. The council cut harvests by two-thirds last year, and meets April 12 in Rohnert Park, California, to set the latest sardine harvest.

The conservation group Oceana is urging the council to immediately shut down sardine fishing, and not wait until the new season starts July 1. The group wants incidental catch limits set at zero, leaving as much food as possible in the ocean for sea lions and other wildlife, and speeding the rebuilding process for sardines.

Ben Enticknap of Oceana acknowledged that sardines naturally go through large population swings, but he argued that fishing since 2007 has exceeded their reproduction rate, exacerbating the numbers collapse.

"Previous stock assessments were way too optimistic and weren't matching up with what was observed on the water," Enticknap said. "The sea lions and sea birds have been starving since 2013, pelicans since 2010. Everyone knew something was going on because there wasn't enough food to eat for these predators. Now this stock assessment comes out saying that the sardine population is much lower than they had previously expected."

David Crabbe, a squid fishing boat owner and council member, said he would expect the council to allow incidental catch to reduce the impact on the fleet.

The latest stock assessments vary between 133,000 metric tons, and 97,000 metric tons, both below the 150,000 metric tons cutoff, and less than 10 percent of the 2006 peak of 1.4 million metric tons.

The stock assessment is conducted by boat. As the research boats cruise the water, an acoustic signal is emitted, which bounces back with information on what kinds and how many fish are nearby. Stock assessors also estimate how many sardine eggs are floating in the water, and how many sardines are spawning off California, said Kerry Griffin, a staff officer for the council.

Fishermen are unhappy with the stock assessments, Pleschner-Steele said. They say the acoustic gear is too deep in the water and misses fish on the surface, where they feed.

Just a matter of time until they make the ocean fishery barbless, fly only.

You're a genius.

Nah, a hookless fly.
You just get to feel the tug.

Depleting species near the base of the food chain... just to be used mainly for bait and fish meal to feed cats and farmed fish... ain't doing wild species any good.

True story.

And another bites the dust.

Salish Sea "market" quotas remain uncaught, as the DFO, nor the press, has consulted with or made any assessment of the success of the Salish Sea First Nations herring egg fisheries; a frightening omen emerges of yet another herring stock collapse
After an amazingly long duration "scratch" roe herring in the Salish Sea, the roe herring fleets continue to be allowed, by the Honourable Gail Shea, to take herring about to spawn in the Nanoose area, with small catches, as the Salish Sea "quota" (obviously now a market based quota with no affiliations to biological sustainability) remains largely uncaught due to a lack of stocks, a situation made worse by the onslaught of El Nino this year.
But the DFO, nor the press, has consulted with or made any assessment of the success of the First Nations "herring egg on branch" fisheries in the Salish Sea in 2015. Yet these many Coast Salish First Nations community fisheries, with herring traditions just as well documented as the Heiltsuk Bella Bella herring fisheries in the news of late, also are supposed to have legal priority, before any commercial catches can be taken in the Salish Sea.
In a frightening omen of yet another stock collapse, a DFO spawn assessment "dive" vessel notes: (see below) "in area 17 south no significant stocks located and no spawn observed". These later spawning most and probably "resident" stocks [Nanaimo to Yellow Point to Saltspring Island] that spawn later than the "migratory stocks" [Nanoose to Hornby region] have in my opinion been decimated by a several years long Christmas period "winter fishery" that has targeted the "resident" herring in the Nanaimo area in 2014, and the Gulf Islands, on previous years. These herring do no leave the Salish Sea, and are vital to the rearing Chinook/killer whale/herring trilogy and a myriad of other beasts and birds such as Glaucous-winged gulls, that [a few decades ago] enjoyed much larger scientifically recorded levels of abundances (see below).
David Ellis
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Fishery Notice
Category(s):
COMMERCIAL - Herring - Roe: Gill Net
COMMERCIAL - Herring - Roe: Seine
COMMERCIAL - Herring - Roe: Test Fishery
COMMERCIAL - Herring: Spawn on Kelp
Subject:
FN0310-COMMERCIAL - Herring - Roe - Areas 14, 15, 17 and 18 - Strait of Georgia - April 2, 2015 Updates
________________________________________

ROE HERRING INFORMATION BULLETIN: 38

DATE: April 2, 2015

STRAIT OF GEORGIA

No spawn observed on the flight today between Saltspring Island and French
Creek. The dive vessel Viking Spirit has been assessing area 17 south and no
significant stocks located and no spawn observed. There will be a spawn flight
at 10:00AM Sunday April 4, 2015, weather permitting. Total linear distance of
spawn to date: 72.3 NM.

The gillnet fleet has not been active for several days. The Strait of Georgia
gillnet fishery catch is 4,168 tons of the 13,975 ton quota.

The seine fishery remains open until further notice in Subareas 14-1 to 14-13,
14-15, 17-10, 17-12, 17-13, 17-18, 17-19 and 17-21. Vessels are required to
carry an at sea observer when engaged in fishing as per the licence conditions.
One seine vessel is fishing in Area 17-18 and 17-19 today, estimated catch 100
tons. The total hailed and validated catch for the seine fishery is 9,110 tons
of the 15,440 ton quota.
Fisheries & Oceans Operations Center - FN0310
Sent April 2, 2015 at 1536
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Salish Sea seagull populations halved since 1980s
news.ubc.ca/.../salish-sea-seagull-populations-halved...Traducir esta página
27 de feb. de 2015 - The number of seagulls in the Strait of Georgia is down by 50 per cent ... of Glaucous-winged Gulls, the most common seagull species found in ...