https://yubanet.com/california/west-coas...nsecutive-year/



So the entire West Coast from CA to BC is gonna forgo any sardine fishing for conservation.... well, except the QIN which will set its seine-nets starting tomorrow to snarf up its self-proclaimed share of 715.7 metric tons.

That's 1.57 million pounds, folks. At an average adult size of 3-4 to the pound, that's anywhere from 4.72 to 6.30 million sardines stripped from an ocean biomass that's already less than 5% of where it was a decade ago!

J
F
C

YGTBFKM, right?

GDITMMFM!

You know Doc got this one guys. Forage fish if driven to collapse do not recover if you stop fishing. The Brits learned that when they drove the herring down low enough that they have not recovered. Fished on them from Roman times but technology brought huge harvest and disaster.

I am ignorant on this subject, but have seen past posts. Thank You! If this is true. Why not close all harvest? Out of the US control? To big of an economic impact? Ocean temperatures/changes? Is this a bye catch issue? Have the stars aligned to produce this from a combination above. In Asian markets I see lots of what I call garbage fish, sardines included, that are freezer burnt and look like crap. And they are cheap. IMO not good for much but for bait. Seems like waste to me. History never seems to stop repeating itself.

There is evidence that the forage fish, like all natural resources, are cyclic. The crash, they recover. Well, they used to recover when we didn't fish the **ck out of them.

Too many people "rely" on fish to eat or fish protein to grow their net pen fish, chicken, turkeys, make fish oil pills for their joints.

On the point of fish "looking like bait", different cultures eat different things. Look at the prices a commercial salmon goes for. Silver bright skin means big bucks. Even a little watermarking (color) and that same fish's price declines. The flesh is the same, has the same nutrition. It is the optics.

This is getting really ugly. We already see, from the relatively small size of this year's springers, that the declining forage fish are being missed. With a forecast return to El Nino by summer's end, the fall runs may be in real trouble.

I understand this has always been cyclical from year to year, but the overall trend is steadily headed downward. When will it stop?

Probably when humans become extinct or significantly reduced in numbers.

We, as a species, are not going to change. Especially not now when the goal is to maximize resource extraction for short-term gain.

Conservation requires that I forgo some benefit from the land/resource for "greater good" of the ecosystem.