only a stock of fish to catch, but also a market and entrepreneurs to invest in
processing. Somebody, or sometimes chickens, must eat the catch or convert its oil
content to paint. Nevertheless, a fishery did emerge, grew to 0.3 Mt, and then crashed
in two steps by 1990. To a slight extent it has been replaced since by renewed sardine
fishing, but at rates probably not taking full advantage of the available stock, which is
believed to be more than 0.9 Mt (down from a peak of 1.8 Mt in 2000, not yet up to
estimates from the 1930s, ∼3.6 Mt). Landings have increased and in 2007 were ∼0.08
Mt off California, ∼0.3 Mt off Mexico. Thus, the harvest of forage fish off California
shows a series of multi-decade “regimes”.
Fig. 17.18 (a) Annual catch from California Current sardine and anchovy stocks. (b)
Annual catches of northwest (Asian) Pacific sardine and anchovy. (c) Annual catches
of Chilean sardine and Peruvian anchoveta.
(^) (Data from Schwartzlose et al. 1999.)