The California Sardine-Anchovy Fisheries

Abstract

The Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) fishery in California reached a peak in the 1936–37 season when over 700,000 short tons were harvested. After 1945 there was a drastic decline in catch to a low of 4,000 tons in the 1953–54 season. The anchovy (Engraulis mordax) fishery has always been much smaller because of low demand and regulations against reduction. An almost continuous controversy has existed over these fishes concerning their reduction to oil and meal. Research has been carried out on sardines for many years and more recently on anchovies by the California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California Academy of Sciences, and the Hopkins Marine Station. Causes of the collapse of the sardine populations have been argued for many years, and it now seems agreed that the major factor was overfishing plus a series of poor year classes. No adequate regulations have ever been imposed on the fishery, partially because of the dual nature of regulatory power. The California State Legislature retains the right to regulate the fishery but has delegated the right to issue reduction permits to the Fish and Game Commission. With the decline in sardines after 1945, the fishing industry increased pressure to allow the catch of anchovies for reduction to meal and oil. Conservation groups have been and still are opposed to such use on the basis that it has not yet been possible to manage the sardine fishery, that forage fish are necessary for the well-being of sport and commercial species, and that research should be carried out on anchovies before an anchovy reduction fishery begins. Anchovy bait fishermen also protested since historically they have had trouble obtaining sufficient fish and believe that a reduction fishery would ruin their business. After lengthy hearings the Fish and Game Commission in 1965 allowed an experimental anchovy reduction fishery with yearly quotas which have ranged from 75,000 to 140,000 short tons. The commercial fishery has never caught the allowable quota. Many reasons for poor anchovy catches have been given, such as too low a quota to make it worthwhile to fish and uncertainty of future regulations to risk additional investment, but the main reason appears to be that the price paid to fishermen is too low to allow a profitable fishery. Processors cannot pay more and effectively compete with world fish meal prices. Rational management of these species probably will not be achieved until control of the sardine fishery is placed in a single conservation agency that is quickly responsive to the needs of the resource, a step that has been advocated by California conservation groups for many years.