Study of Central Coast marine reserves finds signs of fish recovery

Researchers say more time is needed for fish populations to flourish

Tourists stop to watch fish being unloaded at the Morro Bay Fishermen's Wharf.DAVID MIDDLECAMP — dmiddlecamp@thetribunenews.com

 Fish populations have shown signs of rebounding in state marine protected areas off California's Central Coast, but more time is needed for them to flourish, according to a recent study conducted by Cal Poly and the California Sea Grant.The study was published in March in Plos One, a peer-reviewed journal by the Public Library of Science.The study examined the first seven years of monitoring of fish within four marine protected areas (MPAs) between San Francisco and Morro Bay.Fishing within MPAs is generally prohibited or severely limited to allow refuges for fish species that are harvested commercially.MPAs make up about 18 percent of the state water territory.“These marine reserves are going to work, but they’re not a short-term solution for commercial fisheries,” said the study’s lead author, Rick Starr, director of the California Sea Grant’s Extension Program.Starr said that fish populations go up and down based on environmental conditions, and they’ve not detected much difference in populations inside and outside the protected areas.“In the seven years of data examined, we didn’t see much change that could be attributed to the MPA status,” Starr said.That could be partly due to reduced fishing pressure through regulations in non-protected areas, the scientists said.However, Starr believes more time is needed to assess the newer MPAs.In comparison, the much older Point Lobos State Marine Reserve, protected since 1973, is thriving with an abundance of fish.Cal Poly biological resources researcher Dean Wendt, a co-author of the study, said about 20 fish per hour can be caught recreationally in Point Lobos near Monterey — compared to about seven fish per hour in the MPAs Año Nuevo (north of Santa Cruz), Piedras Blancas (between Morro Bay and Monterey) and Point Buchon (near Morro Bay). That’s an indicator that the Point Lobos zone is far more populated.

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A director with the Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Organization, Jeremiah O’Brien, said that he has appreciated the collaboration between fishermen and scientists in the research.But O’Brien said he’s skeptical about the type of ocean management that blocks off large areas off the coast from fishing.“These MPAs were mandated by many who know nothing about fishing and less about ocean issues,” O’Brien said. “There are many management tools available, and this is a poor choice. Seven years and there is no difference — one would think that there would be some noticeable change no matter how small.”O’Brien, however, added that “we have a lot of respect for Dean Wendt, and he always tries to include commercial fisherman in his work.”

More research details

Starr and Wendt, who is dean of research in Cal Poly’s biological sciences department, coordinated with a team of marine researchers and more than 700 volunteer fishermen to sample fish within and outside of the protected areas.The scientists attribute the study results to several factors, including the longer life and reproductive cycles of cold-water California fish, including some that live to be more than 50 years old and can take several years to reproduce.However, lingcod, which take 3 to 5 years to mature, have seen increases in population within the MPAs, Wendt said.Fish recruitment — meaning how well local juvenile fish are surviving — is another factor.In some years, conditions can be right for juvenile fish to significantly add to the population, while in other years ocean currents channel them farther out to sea, where they die. In El Niño years, juvenile fish don’t have enough to eat.Rockfish recruitment is particularly sporadic, meaning it can be more difficult to gauge how well the MPAs are working.The idea behind the MPAs is that eventually the protected zones will contribute to a “spillover” effect in which species move from the protected areas to surrounding ocean vicinities to help grow populations.

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Read the original post: www.sanluisobispo.com

D.B. Pleschner: West Coast sardine decline: Science vs. politics

By D.B. Pleschner, Guest commentary

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The federal Pacific Fishery Management Council has shut down the remainder of the current sardine season and has canceled the 2015-16 fishing season altogether. Fishermen supported this action.Why the closure? According to environmental groups like Oceana, it was to stop overfishing and save starving sea lions deprived of essential sardines.Neither reason is true, but many in the media have trumpeted this hyperbole put forth by groups whose political agenda is to shut down fishing completely.The scientific facts present a different picture: the sardine population is not overfished. And sea lion mortality has not been caused by overfishing sardines.As Dr. Ray Hilborn, professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington and one of the most respected experts on marine fishery population dynamics in the world, recently noted, “Even if there had been no fishing, the decline in California’s sardines would have been almost exactly the same.” Dr. Richard Parrish, another esteemed scientist with deep knowledge of sardines and ocean cycles, outlined how natural mortality and predation consume five times more sardines than the fishery harvests.The truth is that the marine environment plays the major role in determining the size of the sardine stock and its effect on the ecosystem.Dr. Kevin Hill, a fisheries scientist with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center who leads West Coast sardine stock assessments noted that, “Pacific sardines are known for wide swings in their population: the small, highly productive species multiplies quickly in good conditions and can decline sharply at other times, even in the absence of fishing. You can have the best harvest controls in the world, but you’re not going to prevent the population from declining when ocean conditions change in an unfavorable way.”That’s why the sardine harvest control rule — developed in part by Parrish for the management plan in place since 2000 — automatically regulates the sardine fishery both by reducing the fishing quota and reducing the harvest rate as the stock declines. And it shuts down the fishery if the biomass falls below 150,000 metric tons.The 2015 sardine population is estimated to be 97,000 metric tons, a worst-case projection, and the control rule did exactly what it was designed to do — it closed the fishery after a series of poor recruitment years.The sardine fishery would have been shut down regardless of the frenetic lobbying of groups like Oceana. The goal of the policy is to keep at least 75 percent of the sardine population in the ocean.Regarding the sea lion problem, the El Niño cycle that we’re experiencing is a major reason for increased pup mortality, not the lack of sardines. Sardines comprise a minor portion of sea lions’ diet. According to NMFS scientist Mark Lowry, who has studied sea lion scat for 30 years, sardines number eighth on the list of typical sea lion dietary preferences.The sea lion population has increased 5 percent a year even without sardines.Pup counts dipped during the 2003 El Niño also, and we’re experiencing another El Niño event now. Yet the sea lion population has grown by 600 percent since the mid-1970s; they now hog docks and sink boats from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest.Hardworking fishermen take pride in the precautionary fishery management that’s been in place for more than a decade, and they resent groups who demonize them for “overfishing.” It’s an unjust and erroneous accusation leveled at people trying to make an honest living, provide a service to the public and do the right thing for the environment.The fact is that sardines are critically important to California’s historic fishing industry as well as to the Golden State. The “wetfish” industry fishes on a complex of coastal pelagic species also including mackerels, anchovy and market squid, but sardines are an important part of this complex. The industry produces on average 80 percent of total fishery landings statewide and close to 40 percent of dockside value.Thankfully the Pacific Fishery Management Council recognized the need to maintain a small harvest of sardines caught incidentally in other CPS fisheries. A total prohibition on sardine fishing would curtail California’s wetfish industry and seriously harm numerous harbors, including Monterey, as well as the state’s fishing economy.D.B. Pleschner is executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit dedicated to research and to promote sustainable Wetfish resources.

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Read the original post: montereyherald.com

Love 'em Or Hate 'em, Sea Lions Raise Concerns On The Columbia

(Click here for slideshow)

 To some people, sea lions are smart, lovable creatures that shouldn't be harmed in any way. To others they're loud, destructive pests that need to be controlled.As sea lion populations grow, both sides have gripes about how these hulking pinnipeds are being managed on the Columbia River.Some want to see wildlife managers kill more sea lions to protect fragile runs of salmon and steelhead – especially as new research suggests sea lions may be eating a lot more fish than previously thought. Others say killing sea lions is scapegoating, and it won't solve the bigger environmental problems that put the fish at risk in the first place.This spring, around 2,400 barking sea lions piled into Astoria's East Mooring Basin – astonishing biologists who have been monitoring them here for years. The sea lion numbers shattered last year's record of 1,400 of these marine mammals in the marina.A lack of food in the ocean and a big smelt run drew them in and soon California sea lions, which can weigh 700 pounds or more apiece, had taken over the Astoria docks that should be harboring boats. That alone is problem for Bill Hunsinger, who oversees those docks as a commissioner with the Port of Astoria."They’ve absolutely destroyed them," he said. "You can't bring people down to these docks when you have this type of situation."But the port's damaged, unusable docks are only the beginning of Hunsinger's problems with sea lions that he have been sinking boats, disturbing nearby hotel guests and even biting people and their dogs, he said.And that's on top of all the prized spring salmon they're eating – at times plucking them right off the lines of recreational anglers."The fisheries are going to be lost," he said. "I talked to three guys who went fishing two weekends ago. They had nine fish on and never got one to the boat. Lost 'em all to sea lions."Experts say the overall California sea lion population is as big as it's ever been, thanks in part to the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act's restrictions on hunting or harming them. Fish and wildlife managers with Oregon and Washington have killed about 70 sea lions on the Columbia to protect threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead. But Hunsinger and others say they should be killing more.To protect fish runs from sea lion predation, Columbia River tribes are hoping to get authorization from Congress to kill more sea lions – beyond what the states of Oregon and Washington are authorized to kill.Right now, Columbia River Indian tribes' fish commission is using non-lethal hazing to try to deter sea lions from eating salmon at Bonneville Dam – the first bottleneck for fish on the river. As thousands of returning adult salmon and steelhead swim to their spawning grounds to reproduce, the dam slows them down and makes them easy pickings for sea lions.Below the dam, tribal members chase down sea lions and shoot firecrackers at them to push the animals farther downriver and away from the bottleneck.But with dozens of sea lions feeding near the dam, it's not hard to find one tearing through a fish, thrashing his head out the water to break off a bite while sea gulls swoop down for the scraps.This is what managers call a predation event. And according to Doug Hatch, a senior fisheries biologist for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, non-lethal hazing with firecrackers can only do so much to prevent it."For the times that we're hazing, it's pretty effective," Hatch said. "But as soon as we leave the animals will come back."Hatch said more sea lions should be killed to protect fragile runs of salmon and steelhead – not just at Bonneville but throughout the lower river.Looming over the debate about managing sea lions is an ominous number. Last year, a federal study that tracked returning salmon from the mouth of the Columbia to Bonneville Dam found that 45 percent of the fish went inexplicably missing somewhere along the way."The smoking gun is sea lions," Hatch said. "Sea lion abundance has increased tremendously over the past several years – particularly this year it's much higher than we've seen it before."It's unclear exactly how many of the missing fish were eaten by sea lions, but if all of them were, that's a huge portion of the salmon people are spending millions of dollars trying to protect and restore – much bigger than the 2-5 percent rate of sea lion predation of salmon documented the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Bonneville Dam.A new experiment this year aims to fill the gaps in what we know about how many salmon sea lions are eating in the Columbia. Scientists have tagged some sea lions with accelerometers that track the distinctive head-shaking motion they make when they eat salmon. Managers are hoping that the tags will allow them to get a better count on how many fish sea lions are eating in the 146 miles of the river below Bonneville Dam.But no matter how many salmon sea lions are eating, people who love sea lions contend that it's wrong to kill them for doing what they naturally do."Sea lions are beautiful, amazing animals," said Ninette Jones of the Sea Lion Defense Brigade. "We have just been blown away by the outpouring of support for these animals."Jones' group watches over sea lions in Astoria and at Bonneville Dam. She said sea lions have a natural predator-prey relationship with salmon and it's actually people who have put salmon at risk of extinction. Given all the other environmental problems on the Columbia River, including the dams, she said, blaming sea lions is taking the easy, cheaper way out of the complex problems people have created on the river."The salmon populations were going extinct when there were no sea lions in the river back in the '80s," she said. "So to draw the connection that the sea lions are causing the extinction of salmon it's basically scapegoating but it's not going to address the real cause of the extinction of salmon. Even if they killed all the sea lions it's not going to save the salmon."Jones also argues having state wildlife managers killing sea lions is encouraging people to take matters into their own hands and to shoot sea lions illegally. Earlier this month, her group found sea lions bleeding on the docks in Astoria from apparent gunshot wounds.Robin Brown, marine mammal program lead with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, defended his agency's policy of lethally removing some sea lions. The state only kills sea lions that have been identified and observed eating salmon below Bonneville Dam, he said, and the 73 killed since 2006 represent a tiny portion of the total population."We try to manage for the resource that's at the greatest risk," Brown said. "There are over 300,000 California sea lions in the population now and that population is at no risk whatsoever. Yet a lot of these salmon and steelhead populations have been reduced, granted through the actions of people over many years, but those very small populations of salmon and steeled are at great risk of extinction."Back in Astoria, port commissioner Bill Hunsinger disagreed with Jones about the effect of the government's lethal removals. He said the government needs to increase its lethal removal of sea lions to prevent more people from taking matters into their own hands and shooting them illegally. But he doesn't disagree that sea lions are beautiful."Well, they are. And they're entertaining," he said. "But they need to go entertain somebody else in someplace else."Soon many of the sea lions will leave the Columbia River for their breeding grounds farther south. But there's little doubt they'll be back – barking and eating fish again – next spring.

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Read the original post: http://kuow.org/

Why Poop-Eating Vampire Squid Make Patient Parents

The mysterious vampire squid is not actually a vampire or a squid–it’s an evolutionary relict that feeds on detritus. (MBARI)

Squid and octopuses are famous for their “live fast, die young” strategy. At one-year-old or younger, they spawn masses of eggs and die immediately. But scientists have just discovered a striking exception, reported April 20 in the journal Current Biology.Females of the bizarre species known as “vampire squid” can reproduce dozens of times and live up to eight years. This strategy is probably related to the vampire squid’s slow metabolism and its habit of eating poop.These shoebox-sized animals have fascinated biologists since their discovery in 1903, not because of any actual vampiric habits, but because of their puzzling place within the cephalopods—the group of animals that contains squids and octopuses.Vampire squid are neither a squid nor an octopus, and they’re tricky to study because they live hundreds of meters below the surface, in frigid water with very little oxygen.In addition to eight webbed arms, they have two strange thread-like filaments, whose purpose—collecting waste for the vampire squid to eat—wasn’t understood until 2012. A clear picture of the habits and evolution of these animals remains elusive.Take a Rest Between EggsHenk-Jan Hoving, currently at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, began his investigation of vampire squid while at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. For the spawning study, he worked with specimens that had been collected by net off southern California and stored in jars at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.Out of 27 adult females, Hoving and his colleagues found that 20 had “resting ovaries” without any ripe or developing eggs inside. However, all had proof of previous spawning.As in humans, developing eggs are surrounded by a group of cells called a follicle. After a mature egg is released, the follicle is slowly resorbed by the ovary. The resorption process in vampire squid is so slow, in fact, that the scientists could read each animal’s reproductive history in its ovaries.Counting 38 to 100 separate spawning events in the most advanced female, and estimating that at least a month elapsed between each event, Hoving and his co-authors concluded that adult female vampire squid spend three to eight years alternately spawning and resting.This length of time is reminiscent of the deep-sea octopus who brooded her eggs for over four years. In both cases, the animals’ actual lifespan must be longer than their reproductive period, which suggests truly venerable ages for members of a group whose most common representatives live for just a few months. These long life spans are related to a slow metabolism and the chill of the deep sea—around 2 to 7 degrees Celsius, or 35 to 44 Fahrenheit.Limited Calories, But Limited DangerA single spawning event is not actually a strict rule for octopuses and squid. A few species are known to spawn multiple batches of eggs, even as they continue to eat and grow. However, all species reach a continuous spawning phase at the end of their lives.Once a female starts to lay, her body is in egg-production mode until she dies, her ovaries constantly producing. That’s why the discovery of a “resting phase” in the ovaries of vampire squid was so surprising.But this unexpected strategy makes sense in the context of a vampire squid’s lifestyle. The mass spawnings of other cephalopods are fueled by a carnivorous diet of fish, crabs, shrimp and even fellow squids and octopuses.By contrast, the fecal material and mucus that make up most vampire squid meals are not nearly as calorie-rich. The animals may be simply unable to muster enough energy to ripen all their eggs at once.There’s an advantage, however, to living in the food-poor, oxygen-poor depths of the ocean. Few large predators can survive there for long, so vampire squid are relatively safe—compared to their cousins, who are constantly on the run from fish, dolphins, whales, seabirds and each other.When you face a high risk of being eaten on any given day, it’s a good idea to get all your eggs out as quickly as possible. But vampire squid are free to engage in leisurely, repetitive spawning. It’s the ultimate work-life balance: alternately popping out babies, then returning to business as usual.

The vampire squid was named for its fearsome appearance, but those “spines” are just soft flaps of skin. (MBARI)

A fossil cephalopod from the Middle Jurassic, thought to be an early vampire squid.

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Read the original post: http://blogs.kqed.org/

Ray Hilborn Asks If the Drive for MPA's is Environmentally Shortsighted

— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  [SeafoodNews]  April 29 2015

Most NGO's assume that Marine Protected Areas (MPA's) are an unmitigated good, with little thought to their impact on the global food system.

But, converting large areas of productive fisheries to no-take zones, while appealing to NGO's, actually may increase global environmental degredation.

The reason, says Professor Ray Hilborn in our latest video, is that marine protein is essential to global food systems, and as countries get richer and consumer more protein, you must ask where that protein will come from.

Already one quarter of all the ice-free landmass on earth is used for grazing animals.  Growing and feeding beef cattle is very land and energy intensive.

Hilborn says "Most ecolabeling systems make no connection between what we do in the oceans and what we do elsewhere."

He goes on to say that unless you consider how marine protein is going to be replaced, such a narrow view of priorities could make global environmental problems worse, not better.

To supply the current level of marine protein from land based animals would require an area 22 times larger than all global rainforests put together.

Subscribe to SEAFOODNEWS to watch the video— Ray Hilborn: Eat a Fish, Save a Rainforest

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Copyright © 2015 Seafoodnews.com

State and Federal Agencies Halt Commercial Sardine Fishing off California

Media Contacts:Kirk Lynn, CDFW Marine Region, (858) 546-7167Chelsea Protasio, CDFW Marine Region, (831) 649-2994Carrie Wilson, CDFW Communications, (831) 649-7191

State and Federal Agencies HaltCommercial Sardine Fishing off California

All large-volume commercial sardine fishing in state and federal waters off California has been prohibited as of Tuesday, April 28, 2015. The closing will remain in effect until at least July 2016.

"This may be an end of an era, but fortunately, the tough management decisions were made several years ago," noted Marci Yaremko, CDFW's representative to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council), and fishery manager for coastal pelagic species, including sardines.At its April 12 meeting, the Council recommended regulations that prohibit directed commercial fishing for Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) in California, Oregon and Washington for the upcoming fishing season, which would have begun July 1, 2015, and run through June 30, 2016. In light of revised stock biomass information and landings data for the current season, the Council also requested the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) close the fishery in the current season as quickly as possible. This closure takes effect today."The stock is in a state of decline, and now is too low to support large-scale fishing," Yaremko explained. "Industry, government agencies and those looking out for non-consumptive interests have all worked together over the years to develop the harvest control rule we are using today, which defines when enough is enough."The Pacific sardine fishery in California was actively managed by the CDFW until 2000, when it was incorporated into the Council's Coastal Pelagic Species Fishery Management Plan. Since then, the fishery has been actively co-managed by the Council, NMFS, CDFW and Oregon and Washington's Fish and Wildlife agencies.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.The Pacific sardine fishery continues to be a significant part of California's economy at times. At the recent fishery's peak in 2007, 80,000 metric tons (mt) of Pacific sardine was landed resulting in an export value of more than $40 million. The majority of California commercial sardine landings occur in the ports of San Pedro/Terminal Island and Monterey/Moss Landing.The Pacific sardine resource is assessed annually, and the status information is used by the Council during its annual management and quota setting process. The Council adopted the 2015 stock assessment, including the biomass projection of 96,688 mt, as the best available science. Current harvest control rules prohibit large-volume sardine fishing when the biomass falls below 150,000 mt. 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 has been attributed, in part, to changes in ocean temperatures, which has been negatively impacting the species' production. While the estimated population size is relatively low, the stock is not considered to be 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."Hard-working fishermen take pride in the precautionary fishery management that's been in place for more than a decade," said Diane Pleschner-Steele, Executive Director of the California Wetfish Producers Association. "Thankfully the Pacific Fishery Management Council recognized the need to maintain a small harvest of sardines caught incidentally in other coastal pelagic fisheries. A total prohibition on sardine fishing would curtail California's wetfish industry and seriously harm numerous harbors as well as the state's fishing economy."Pacific sardine is considered to be an important forage fish in the Pacific Ocean ecosystem and is also utilized recreationally and for live bait in small volumes. CDFW protects this resource by being an active participant in this co-management process. CDFW has representatives on the Council's advisory bodies, works closely with the industry to track Pacific sardine landings in California and runs a sampling program that collects biological information, such as size, sex and age of Pacific sardine and other coastal pelagic species that are landed in California's ports. These landings and biological data are used by CDFW in monitoring efforts and are also used by NMFS in annual stock assessments.For more information about Pacific sardine history, research and management in California, please visit CDFW's Pacific sardine webpage at www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/cpshms/. 

School of sardines, Channel Islands CDFW file photo

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Researchers, Managers, and Industry Saw This Coming: Boom-Bust Cycle Is Not a New Scenario for Pacific Sardines

A Message from Eileen Sobeck, Head of NOAA FisheriesPacific sardines have a long and storied history in the United States. These pint-size powerhouses of the ocean have been -- on and off -- one of our most abundant fisheries. They support the larger ecosystem as a food source for other marine creatures, and they support a valuable commercial fishery. When conditions are good, this small, highly productive species multiplies quickly. It can also decline sharply at other times, even in the absence of fishing. So it is known for wide swings in its population.Recently, NOAA Fisheries and the Pacific Fishery Management Council received scientific information as a part of the ongoing study and annual assessment of this species. This information showed the sardine population had continued to decline. It was not a surprise. Scientists, the Council, NOAA, and the industry were all aware of the downward trend over the past several years and have been following it carefully. Last week, the Council urged us to close the directed fishery on sardines for the 2015 fishing season.  NOAA Fisheries is also closing the fishery now for the remainder of the current fishing season to ensure the quota is not exceeded.While these closures affect the fishing community, they also provide an example of our effective, dynamic fishery management process in action. Sardine fisheries management is designed around the natural variability of the species and its role in the ecosystem as forage for other species. It is driven by science and data, and catch levels are set far below levels needed to prevent overfishing.  In addition, a precautionary measure is built into sardine management to stop directed fishing when the population falls below 150,000 metric tons. The 2015 stock assessment resulted in a population estimate of 97,000 metric tons, below the fishing cutoff, thereby triggering the Council action.The sardine population is presently not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. However, the continued lack of recruitment of young fish into the stock in the past few years would have decreased the population, even without fishing pressure. So, these closures were a “controlled landing”. We saw where this stock was heading several years ago and everyone was monitoring the situation closely.This decline is a part of the natural cycle in the marine environment. And if there is a new piece to this puzzle -- such as climate change -- we will continue to work closely with our partners in the scientific and management communities, the industry, and fishermen to address it.To learn more about this amazing fish, go to these websites:FishWatchNOAA Southwest Fishery Science CenterNOAA Fisheries West Coast RegionPacific Fishery Management Council

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Read the original post: www.nmfs.noaa.gov

Another View: Sardine population isn’t crashing

Freshly caught sardines awaiting sorting at West Bay Marketing in Astoria, Ore. On April 15, federal regulators approved an early closure of commercial sardine fishing off Oregon, Washington and California to prevent overfishing. Alex Pajunas Associated Press file

By D.B. Pleschner | Special to The BeeEnvironmental groups such as Oceana complain that the sardine population is collapsing just as it did in the mid-1940s. They blame “overfishing” as the reason and maintain that the fishery should be shut down completely (“Starving sea lions spotlight overfishing,” Viewpoints, April 14).In truth, Pacific sardines are perhaps the best-managed fishery in the world. The current rule – established in 2000 and updated last year with more accurate science – sets a strict harvest guideline. If the water temperature is cold, the harvest rate is low. And if the population size decreases, both the harvest rate and the allowable catch automatically decrease.It’s inaccurate and disingenuous to compare today’s fishery management with the historic sardine fishery collapse that devastated Monterey’s Cannery Row. During the 1940s and ’50s, the fishery harvest averaged more than 43 percent of the standing sardine stock. Plus, there was little regulatory oversight and no limit on the annual catch.Since the return of federal management in 2000, the harvest rate has averaged about 11 percent, ranging as low as 6 percent. Scientists recognize two sardine stocks on the West Coast: the northern stock ranges from northern Baja California to Canada during warm-water oceanic cycles and retracts during cold-water cycles. A southern or “temperate” stock ranges from southern Baja to San Pedro in Southern California. The federal Pacific Fishery Management Council manages only the northern stock.Doing the math, our current fishery harvest is less than a quarter of the rate during the historical sardine collapse. The so-called “sardine crash due to overfishing” mantra now peddled by Oceana isn’t anything of the sort. It’s simply natural fluctuations that follow the changing conditions of the ocean, reflected in part by water temperature.California’s wetfish industry relies on a complex of coastal species including mackerel, anchovy and squid, as well as sardines. Sardines typically school with all these species, so a small allowance of sardine caught incidentally in these other fisheries will be necessary to keep wetfish boats fishing and processors’ doors open.Sardines are critically important to California’s historic wetfish industry. This industry produces on average 80 percent of total fishery catches, and close to 40 percent of dockside value. A total prohibition on sardine harvests could curtail the wetfish industry and seriously harm California’s fishing economy.

D.B. Pleschner is executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association.

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Read the original post: www.sacbee.com