The anti-fishing group Oceana is up to mischief again.
Members claim that when the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted last week to allow sardine fishing to continue in 2013, based on recommendations of their Scientific and Statistical Committee -- a group of knowledgeable scientists who review all council actions to achieve best available science -- a debate erupted (spurred largely by Oceana) about whether the sardine resource is in a state of collapse similar to what happened in the 1940s "Cannery Row" era.
But as usual, Oceana is attempting to obfuscate the truth to achieve its agenda of shutting down fishing.
The fact is there was no controversy among expert fisheries biologists over the setting of the 2013 sardine harvest limit, and the resource is not about to collapse. The controversy stemmed from the problem that the acoustic survey, one of three indices used to measure sardine abundance, estimated only 13,000 metric tons in the Pacific Northwest, during the same period the fishery was catching 50,000 metric tons, in the same general area and an aerial survey estimated 900,000 metric tons.
Because this was an "update" year, neither scientists nor the council had leeway to change the stock assessment, even though it likely underestimated the sardine population. In fact, scientists from around the globe have acknowledged that the West Coast sardine fishery is among the best managed in the world.
That's because the management of Pacific sardines is very precautionary. We have a risk-averse formula in place that ensures when population numbers go down, the harvest also goes down. Conversely, when more sardines are available, more harvest is allowed.
For example, all the indices used to measure abundance -- acoustics, daily egg production and an aerial survey conducted in the Pacific Northwest -- ticked upward (or were stable) last year, which led to a higher harvest guideline in 2012.
In 2011, our sardine fisheries harvested only 5.11 percent of a very conservative stock estimate, leaving nearly 95 percent of the species for predators and ecosystem needs.
Does that sound like overfishing to you?
Apparently Oceana doesn't understand what actually occurred during the historic collapse of the sardine fishery in the 1940s. But for those of us who care, it's important to compare historical data with the present. This is especially important because sardine fisheries were "virtually unregulated" on the West Coast during the Cannery Row era, but since then the U.S. sardine fishery has operated under strict management rules.
Consider that the sardine biomass declined from 793,000 metric tons in 1949, when sardines abandoned the Pacific Northwest, to about 3,000 metric tons in 1965, and the exploitation rate for adult sardines during most of the period was more than 50 percent — far cry from the fishery today.
Because this year's stock assessment declined, Oceana claimed the sky is falling on sardines, and demanded that the harvest rate for 2013 be cut to 2 percent -- which would effectively close the fishery entirely. The Scientific and Statistical Committee and Pacific Fishery Management Council knew the truth and rejected Oceana's demands.
As an author of the sardine harvest policy, Dr. Richard Parrish makes these important points about key differences between then and now:
Present harvest guidelines were designed so that the council would not have to change the harvest rate every time the stock size changed.
The up-and-down flexibility in harvest guidelines, based on annual biomass estimates, is an important feature to achieve optimum yield -- which considers fisheries as well as forage.
These scientific facts support the Coastal Pelagic Species Management Team, cientific and Statistical Committee and Pacific Fishery Management Council's decision that the current harvest control rules for sardine (and other CPS) are precautionary and going forward will continue to protect our marine ecosystem and fishery.
We can't afford to destroy sardine and other CPS fisheries, the backbone of California's fishing economy
D.B. Pleschner is executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit designed to promote sustainable wetfish resources.