Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 9

Special Significance of the Species

The sardine and the sardine fishery have played an instrumental role in the economic development and expansion of western North America, particularly Monterey, California. It has been popularized in Steinbeck’s novel Cannery Row (Hemp 1986) and so has cultural significance in the United States. Sardines have also been an important source of food for Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations people (west coast of Vancouver Island). Sardine is a highly prized food fish worldwide and is used extensively for bait wherever it occurs. Biologically, the sardine is an important forage species that supports a variety of predators and plays a pivotal role in the marine ecosystem. Since the mid-1990s, sardine have dominated the commercial fish biomass landings in California (see http://swr.ucsd.edu/fmd/bill/landings.htm). Aside from squid, they appear to be among the most abundant species on the coast. As a result, they provide prey for most marine fish predators including other fishes(tunas, yellowtail, barracuda, bonito, marlin, hake, and mackerel), sharks, seabirds (pelicans, gulls, cormorants), and marine mammals (sea lions, seals, porpoises, and whales) (Culley 1971). During their peak abundance in the 1930s and early 1940s, sardine was the dominant prey species for chinook and coho salmon in the Pacific northwest (Pritchard and Tester 1944, Bargmann 1998).

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