The Collapse of the California Sardine Fishery What Have We learned

For a number of years, Federal scientists, employed by an agency whose primary goal was to assist the development of the U.S. commercial fisheries, looked for causes, other than fishing, for the F’acZic sardine’s decline, while California State scientists, charged with the role of protector of the State’s resources, sought reasons to support the premise that ovefishing was having an effect. At the same time, scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography looked for fundamental generalizations in theory rather than the activities of man to explain changes in fish populations. For many years, California State personnel struggled without success to gain control over a burgeoning, and later declining sardine fishery. Faced with the possibility that legislation might be enacted, giving the California Fish and Game Commission control over the sardine fishery, the California fishing industry sponsored the formation of the Marine Research Committee to collect and disburse funds and to coordinate and sponsor more “needed” research, thereby forestalling any action to allow management of the fishery to come under the authority of the California Fish and Game Commission. Subsequently, the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) was formed, under which cooperative research proceeded. Oceanic conditions (temperature) was found to affect profoundly the distribution, year-class production, and yield of sardines. Nonintermingling or only partially intermingling stocks of sardines have been described. Considerable attention has been focused on the complementary role of sardines and anchovies as competing species acting as a single biomass while competing with each other as part of that biomass. Confirmation of this hypothesis was found to have been based on faulty interpretation of basic data. If such a relationship exists, it still needs to be demonstrated. Density-controlling mechanisms, however, which may be of greater importance, include predation, cannibalism, and other behavioral characteristics. Schooling behavior, for instance, which has evolved through natural selection to decrease mortality from predation, may work toward destruction of the prey species when it is confronted by a fishery which evolves more rapidly than does the species defense against it. A model that is consistent with the results of all the previous studies on the sardine must bring one to the conclusion that the present scarcity of sardines off the coast of California, and their absence off the northwest, is an inescapable climax, given the characteristics and magnitude of the fishery and the behavior and life history of the species.