December 10, 2012 — Let’s move past the false accusations and find solutions that protect the forage engine driving our fisheries and ecosystems. Our west coast fishing communities, the California Current ocean ecosystem, and ultimately our coastal economy depend on it.
The California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA) is in the business of catching small fish, but they also sure know how to tell a whopper.
In her opinion article, “Oceana claims controversy on sardines, but scientists disagree”, CWPA’s Executive Director, D.B. Pleschner, wrongly accuses Oceana of creating a controversy over the recent Pacific sardine stock assessment in order to “achieve its agenda of shutting down fishing.” Oceana has never had an agenda of shutting down fishing. We strongly believe in healthy oceans that can support a variety of uses including sustainable fisheries and vibrant coastal communities.
Oceana does not dispute the recent 2012 Pacific sardine stock assessment, rather, we believe this assessment represents the best available science. It is this assessment that outlines that the sardine population has been in continuous decline for the past six years and that the population is 33% lower than was estimated last year. We are not “claiming the sky is falling.” It is undisputable that Pacific sardine populations are plummeting.
What is more, we did not call on the Pacific Fishery Management Council to shut down the sardine fishery. We are however concerned that the only option considered by the Council in setting the 2013 quota, has been acknowledged by the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) and NMFS scientists (McClatchie et al. 2010) to need significant revision. For years, the SSC has called for a full “management strategy evaluation” to revise the sardine harvest control rule, including the harvest rate, the proportion of the stock in U.S. waters, and key economic and ecological factors. The crux of the problem is that sardines are managed under the assumption that we can predict when sardines will boom or bust, yet science indicates otherwise.
The most recent stock assessment showing that the sardine population is in decline is consistent with the findings of a scientific paper published by two of the NMFS stock assessment authors (Zwolinski and Demer 2012, "A cold oceanographic regime with high exploitation rates in the Northeast Pacific forecasts a collapse of the sardine stock"). In this paper, the authors write that the Pacific sardine population has “declined precipitously” and that similar to the crash in the mid-1900s, “alarming is the repetition of the fishery’s response to a declining sardine stock—progressively higher exploitation rates targeting the oldest, largest, and most fecund fish.” The paper establishes a critical spawning stock biomass of 740,000 metric tons (mt) below which the population is at serious risk from fishing pressure. Alarmingly, the stock assessment estimates the current 2012 spawning stock biomass to be only 435,351 mt.
Pleschner further obfuscates the truth by factually misrepresenting the current coastwide catch rate as 5%, when in fact the stock assessment showed it is currently three times that. According to the federal government’s own fishery model, removing 15% of the sardine population every year reduces the population over time to less than half of what it would be without fishing. In other words, since the fishery has been removing sardines for the last two decades, the annual removals do not indicate what is left. Therefore, Pleshner’s claim that the industry “leaves 95% of the species for predators and ecosystem needs” is a statistical lie.
Further flawed is the calculation of the proportion of the sardine stock in U.S. waters versus in the waters off Mexico and Canada. Without any formal agreement, U.S. managers assume 87% of the stock is in U.S. waters, 13% is in Mexico and 0% is off Canada. Canada, however, assumes 27.2% of the population is in its waters off Vancouver Island, while fleets off northern Baja California, Mexico are taking nearly 40% of the coast-wide landings. With three countries setting arbitrary harvest assumptions for their neighbors, it is no wonder we have coastwide overfishing.
Fortunately, forage fish—such as sardines and squid—have wide natural fluctuations and ultimately we should be talking about managing the forage base as a whole. The ability to switch between forage species will allow the industry to capitalize on these natural booms. What Pleschner fails to mention is that the same “wetfish” industry seeking to maintain high sardine harvests amidst a collapse is actually making more money than ever. This year is the third of three consecutive years of the highest market squid catch (and revenues) ever.
Let’s move past the false accusations and find solutions that protect the forage engine driving our fisheries and ecosystems. Our west coast fishing communities, the California Current ocean ecosystem, and ultimately our coastal economy depend on it.
Geoff Shester and Ben Enticknap are with Oceana, the largest non-profit organization dedicated solely to protecting the world’s oceans.
Citations:
Hill, K.T., Crone, P.R., Lo, N.C.H., Demer, D.A., Zwolinski, J.P., and Macewicz, B.J. 2012. Assessment of the Pacific sardine resource in 2012 for U.S. management in 2013.
McClatchie, S. R. Goericke, G. Auad, and K. Hill. 2010. Re-assessment of the stock-recruit and temperature-recruit relationships for Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax). Can. J. Fish. Aq. Sci. 67: 1782-1790.
Zwolinski, J. and D.A. Demer. 2012. A cold oceanographic regime with high exploitation rates in the Northeast Pacific forecasts a collapse of the sardine stock. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 109 (11). 4175-4180.