Don't count on fresh Monterey Bay sardines for dinner anytime soon.
Yesterday, the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to close the commercial sardine fishery off the U.S. West Coast for the rest of the 2014-15 season.
The decision comes on the heels of an April 13 vote to close the sardine fishery for the 2015-16 season, which begins July 1. A federal assessment found the sardine population has fallen 91 percent since 2007, leaving the stock too low to allow a commercial sardine catch next season.
About 2,000 tons of sardines, however, remained on the quota for this 2014-15 season, which ends June 30. Yesterday's decision, which is expected to take effect within about a week (pending a sign-off from the National Marine Fisheries Service), meaning those sardines will now remain in the sea.
"The sky really has fallen on the sardine fishery," says Geoff Shester, California programs director for marine conservation nonprofit Oceana. The group has been advocating for federal fisheries managers to increase protections for sardines and other forage fish, which play a key role in the marine food web.
Diane Pleschner-Steele of the California Wetfish Producers Association says her group, representing commercial fishermen, supports the harvest control rule, which closes the fishery when sardine numbers fall below the cutoff.
"The stock has declined in recent years due to cold water ocean conditions and several years of low recruitment," she writes by email. "This is a natural decline—the sardine stock is NOT overfished and NOT subject to overfishing."
The wetfish industry, which also catches anchovies, mackerel and squid, will take a hit from the closure but is resilient, she adds. The closure allows some incidential bycatch of sardines in the harvest of other seafood.
Regarding the emergency closure of the 2014-15 season, Pleschner-Steele says the current sardine population shouldn't qualify as an emergency, just an extra layer of precaution.
Until sardines are more abundant off the West Coast, Shester offers a piece of advice for consumers looking for sustainable local seafood:
"Eat more calamari."
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