POOR CATCHES MADE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 74, 17 January 1947, Page 7

POOR CATCHES MADE

AMERICA’S SARDINE MARKET

MUCH SMALLER YIELDS REPORTED

The poor fish, particularly the sardine, became overly prominent in California’s economy during the war years, states the Christian Science Monitor.

Now when the need for that too familiar substitute for the rich, red meat of the fondly remembered ’3o’s is greater than ever, the sardine is staying away from Pacific Coast waters—in billions.

Some 9,000,000,000 sardines ranged in silvery schools from Lower California to British Columbia in I the year 1936-1944. Today the catch of the San Pedro, Calif., Monterey, Calif., and San Francisco sardine fleets has been cut in two and where Pacific canneries were packaging over 4,000,000,000 sardines, they now are taking less than 3,000,000,000.

The Monterey and San Francisco fishing fleets are off San Pedro today, where fishing is none too good but better than in the northern areas. To date 503 tons of sardines have been caught off San Francisco, as compared to 83,000 last year. The Monterey catch dropped to one-sixth of its 1945 size.

Planes, blimps and trained observers have scouted the northern waters to no avail.

Good Spawn in 1939

I Where have they gone? Richard Croker, chief of the State Bureau of Marine Fisheries, says that they aren’t. The answer can be found in any of a number of directions and probably in more than one—water temperature, currents, plant and animal food for the sardines, salinity. Failure to spawn is probably the chief factor, Mr Croker believes.

California’s sardines, caught principally between Santa Barbara and San Diego, are spawned in the warm, shallow waters off the coast, of Mexico’s Lower California. The last good sardine spawn was in 1939, reflected in the record 1941-42 California catch of 583,463 tons—all sardines.

The sardines migrate from south to north and back to south each year. Mr Croker isn’t just sure why. Neither he nor the Bureau of Marine Fisheries understand the elu.sive sardine. They go south to spawn.

The sardines leave billions of eggs drifting off the southern coast and if the temperature isn’t just right, or the currents correct, the eggs are lost. If the eggs are swept out to sea instead of close to shore, the sardine population is cut. This in turn means fewer sardines to spawn.

Catch Falls Off

“It’s a vicious circle,” says Mr Croker. And from this he concludes that today’s shortage, and future shortage which may grow worse with the years, is probably here to stay.

“There are two strikes on good spawning chances already,” he continues.

Pointing to 79 boats’ catch of 2,240 tons in the San Pedro area today as typical of a 1946 day, he compares this average of less than 30 silvery tons to the normal average of a few years ago—100 to 200 tons. Extensive Marine Fisheries Bureau studies indicate that the Pacific Coast may well be sardineless, in great quantity, for many years to come. Of course, you may say, there are still yellowfin, bluefin, and skipjack tuna, albacore, shark, mackerel, salmon, barracuda, yellowtail—to name the Pacific Coast’s blue plate elite. But although the total fish catch used to average 30,000,000 dollars, this year’s is the lowest in history.

The California tuna pack is 35 per cent, above the first nine months of last year, but this result of hours of strong-backed fisherman labour still has failed to tip the scales upward. The Pacific fish pack, including Alaska, will decrease by about eight per cent, this year. To the housewife all of this means fish prices higher in some cases than she paid for meat in the good old days—and this is not a fish story.