California Sardine Depletion Analysis

In Arthur McEvoy and Harry Schreiber’s article “A Study of the Post-1945 California Sardine Depletion”, they talk about the disastrous results that occurred due to excessive sardine fishing along California’s coast. Sardine fishery in California was carelessly unregulated due to the major profit it was acquiring during the mid-1930s when the fishery was at its peak. The authors state that, “It supplied at the time fully one fourth the entre tonnage of fish landed in the United States” (McEvoy 393). Not only canned goods were being supplied by California’s fishery but also provided materials for industrial uses both nationwide and international. During World War I is when the fishery for sardines grew exponentially. Modern inventions made it possible to yield higher numbers of sardines out of places such as San Pedro and Monterey California. A study shows that “Yields rose at a staggering rate, from less than 30,000 tons landed in California in the 1916-1917 season to their historical peak of more than 720,000 tons in 1936-1937” (McEvoy 395). It was only after World War II and the depression that the sardine industry took a major hit. Due to the lack of control in coastal waters, fishery depletion began being worrisome to scientists. The continuous fishing throughout many years did not allow the fish to

Even with irrefutable evidence that the massive amounts of sardine fishing caused the depletion of sardines, the MRC’s concluded after 15 years that they have still not found the reason as to why sardines have diminished. Over time and setting their differences aside the agencies concluded that sardine depletion was the result of excessive fishing. Although it was too late for the sardines, the agencies did however use their grant money to explore information on oceanic currents and sardine related