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http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Sardines+return+millions+coast/4571498/story.html
Sardines return by the millions to B.C. coast
By Gordon Hamilton, Vancouver Sun April 6, 2011 7:32 PM Be the first to post a comment
Sardines' return to the West Coast is being attributed changes in ocean conditions.
Photograph by: Submitted photo, Vancouver Sun files
VANCOUVER — Sardines have returned to the B.C. coast in schools “thick enough to walk on” creating a fascinating spectacle and new fishery on Vancouver Island.
Fishing fleets in resource-dependent communities like Ucluelet, Zeballos and Port Hardy harvested 22 thousand tonnes of sardines last year, a tiny fraction of the schools that observers say can be hundreds of metres long as they move into the Island’s bays and inlets.
“I’ve seen them on the west coast of Vancouver Island thick enough to walk on,” Barron Carswell, senior manager of marine fisheries and seafood policy for the provincial agriculture ministry, said in an interview. “It’s incredible. They are all over the place. You can go into little bays and the surface of the water is all sardines.”
Sardines, also called pilchards, were at one time a major B.C. fishery, but they mysteriously disappeared in the 1940s. Overfishing along their migration route from California to Alaska is believed to be a prime cause.
Their return is being attributed to changes in ocean conditions.
Now that they are back, the new fishery is being managed cautiously to ensure that it will be sustainable, said Carswell. Seine boats all have a fisheries observer aboard and an observer on the dock when they unload their catch to ensure quotas are not exceeded. The fishery also has a strong First Nations component. The federal department of fisheries issues 25 commercial and 25 communal first nations licences annually. Seine crews and unloading station workers are mostly recruited from local first nations.
The overall B.C. sardine quota is 22,000 tonnes but estimates on the size of the sardine population run as high as one million tonnes.
The first fishery was held in 2007, when the wholesale value of the catch was $1.4 million. Early estimates show the wholesale value of the 2010 catch at $41 million.
“They slowly started to show up 10 years ago and for the last few years we have had a limited fishery on them,” said Dan Treend, one of the owners of Breakers Fish Co. of Richmond, which operates three seine boats out of Zeballos from June to October, the sardine season.
“It’s a fantastic fishery. It’s a very clean fishery, there’s very little bycatch. Most of the catch is 100 per cent sardines,” Treend said in an interview. “I am sure they have always been here to some degree but not in big schools like they are now. When they school up, it’s like a cloud passing over the sun; you see a giant cloud of fish going by.”
Treend said sardines are fast-swimming fish which makes them more difficult to catch with a seine net than herring.
“By the time you close your net most of them are already gone. Even so, guys can get 50 tonnes in a single set but it’s nowhere near the size of the school.”
Treend said most of the catch is exported to Russia, Ukraine and Asian countries where there is more of a culture around eating the oily fish.
Treend has eaten them himself but is not particularly fond of them.
“We are just not accustomed to them in North America,” he said. “They have light grey flesh, are a little oily tasting and slightly fishy.
But they are far superior to the canned sardines most Canadians are familiar with, he said.
The ministry of agriculture is promoting sardines on its website BCseafood.ca where it has recipes for the fish, which it describes as a “nutritional powerhouse” full of omega-3 fatty acids.
Treend said Breakers sells a limited number of fresh sardines in Greater Vancouver beginning in June through small specialty distributors, where they can show up in stores like Thrifty Foods and Whole Foods.
ghamilton@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technol...llions+coast/4571498/story.html#ixzz1InoJ1OHZ
By Gordon Hamilton, Vancouver Sun April 6, 2011 7:32 PM Be the first to post a comment
Sardines' return to the West Coast is being attributed changes in ocean conditions.
Photograph by: Submitted photo, Vancouver Sun files
VANCOUVER — Sardines have returned to the B.C. coast in schools “thick enough to walk on” creating a fascinating spectacle and new fishery on Vancouver Island.
Fishing fleets in resource-dependent communities like Ucluelet, Zeballos and Port Hardy harvested 22 thousand tonnes of sardines last year, a tiny fraction of the schools that observers say can be hundreds of metres long as they move into the Island’s bays and inlets.
“I’ve seen them on the west coast of Vancouver Island thick enough to walk on,” Barron Carswell, senior manager of marine fisheries and seafood policy for the provincial agriculture ministry, said in an interview. “It’s incredible. They are all over the place. You can go into little bays and the surface of the water is all sardines.”
Sardines, also called pilchards, were at one time a major B.C. fishery, but they mysteriously disappeared in the 1940s. Overfishing along their migration route from California to Alaska is believed to be a prime cause.
Their return is being attributed to changes in ocean conditions.
Now that they are back, the new fishery is being managed cautiously to ensure that it will be sustainable, said Carswell. Seine boats all have a fisheries observer aboard and an observer on the dock when they unload their catch to ensure quotas are not exceeded. The fishery also has a strong First Nations component. The federal department of fisheries issues 25 commercial and 25 communal first nations licences annually. Seine crews and unloading station workers are mostly recruited from local first nations.
The overall B.C. sardine quota is 22,000 tonnes but estimates on the size of the sardine population run as high as one million tonnes.
The first fishery was held in 2007, when the wholesale value of the catch was $1.4 million. Early estimates show the wholesale value of the 2010 catch at $41 million.
“They slowly started to show up 10 years ago and for the last few years we have had a limited fishery on them,” said Dan Treend, one of the owners of Breakers Fish Co. of Richmond, which operates three seine boats out of Zeballos from June to October, the sardine season.
“It’s a fantastic fishery. It’s a very clean fishery, there’s very little bycatch. Most of the catch is 100 per cent sardines,” Treend said in an interview. “I am sure they have always been here to some degree but not in big schools like they are now. When they school up, it’s like a cloud passing over the sun; you see a giant cloud of fish going by.”
Treend said sardines are fast-swimming fish which makes them more difficult to catch with a seine net than herring.
“By the time you close your net most of them are already gone. Even so, guys can get 50 tonnes in a single set but it’s nowhere near the size of the school.”
Treend said most of the catch is exported to Russia, Ukraine and Asian countries where there is more of a culture around eating the oily fish.
Treend has eaten them himself but is not particularly fond of them.
“We are just not accustomed to them in North America,” he said. “They have light grey flesh, are a little oily tasting and slightly fishy.
But they are far superior to the canned sardines most Canadians are familiar with, he said.
The ministry of agriculture is promoting sardines on its website BCseafood.ca where it has recipes for the fish, which it describes as a “nutritional powerhouse” full of omega-3 fatty acids.
Treend said Breakers sells a limited number of fresh sardines in Greater Vancouver beginning in June through small specialty distributors, where they can show up in stores like Thrifty Foods and Whole Foods.
ghamilton@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technol...llions+coast/4571498/story.html#ixzz1InoJ1OHZ
