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The numbers in question are quite wild[0]
> The NOAA assessment estimated the Pacific sardine biomass will be at 27,547 metric tons by the summer – significantly less than the 150,000 metric tons needed to reopen the fishery to commercial fishing. Any fishery at less than 50,000 metric tons is considered to be overfished. The assessment estimates the sardine biomass was around 1.8 million metric tons in 2006.
Haha, damn. Fishermen must have visibly noticed such a decline. 1,800,000 metric tons to 27,000 metric tons. Two orders of magnitude. Wow.
0: https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/environment-sustainabilit...
When a fishery crashes, it is dramatic and takes a long time to recover if ever. There's been plenty of fisheries like cod that one could not conceive being depleted but it has been now for decades.
Estimates of catches, mortality, existing stock are prone to error because we don't really know much about how fish live and their overall population. But once that crash happens it is known and too late. Cod crashed in 1992 and still hasn't recovered
The overfishing situation seems dire across many species. I read that Mitsubishi is deep-freezing tuna in anticipation of its extinction. I don't know if that's actually their motivation, but they are definitely involved in tuna procurement.
https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/sustainability/social/s...
https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/sustainability/social/s...
That's what happened to the Atlantic cod fishery. The biologists kept warning of collapse, the relevant regulators didn't want to piss off the fishermen, and didn't institute necessary restrictions, and then the fishery collapsed.
The fishermen, of course, blamed the dab gum gubmbent for getting in their business. Anything but taking responsibility for their actions.
We need to restart oceanic iron fertilization!
And that is what remains of the Pacific sardine fishery. It used to be that sardines were plentiful all around Monterey, but during WWII fishermen used improved sensors to track down and remove all schools of sardines until they were gone. Since then attempts to reintroduce sardines to that stretch of California coast have all failed. This is a really huge loss to the whole ecosystem there.
I can imagine fishermen noticing the change long before it showed up as an empty shelf at a supermarket
It's a terrible picture almost everywhere you look.
The Antarctic krill population is facing a similar decline due to influencer marketing (promoting Krill as a superior omega 3 supplement). Sardines and Krill are the foundation of the entire oceanic food ecosystems. This is not good.
Portugal almost made some fisheries extinct, we had to severely curtain fishing and still sardines would show up in the markets. I think fishermen notice, but they’re also incentivised to continue fishing because the price starts going up?
Some enterprising entrepreneur will realise there are still 27,547 metric tons left to sell, and capitalism will be saved!
The oceans are depleted. And some countries with shadow fleets are to blame more than the others. But somehow it’s not even a small priority for most countries. Whales are dying because they are malnourished and that is an indicator that there’s barely anything left. The idea that international waters are available for anyone and everyone to exploit is just wild.
Recent episode of the Odd Lots podcast, "How a Sardine Gets From the Ocean to a Can":
> Just a decade ago, tinned fish was hardly a premium product. Most Americans likely associated cans of tuna with thrift. But that has changed a lot in recent years. The category took off during Covid and now shoppers are shelling out for high end brands like Fishwife. Today's guest Becca Millstein started the company in 2020, positioning it as a distinct, artisanal product, more akin to one might find in European grocery stores. In addition to the sheer challenges of scaling, the nature of the business itself has changed, influenced by climate change and geopolitics (shortages have led Morocco to suspend frozen sardine exports for instance). We discuss the tinned fish supply chain and how a new brand positions itself in today's media market.
* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-a-sardine-gets-fro...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqP18fQi_CM
* https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/how-a-sardine-gets-from-the-o...
Where can't you find them?
All of my local supermarkets in the US have a million cans of sardines from a dozen different brands each, ranging from like $1.50/can for e.g. Goya in soybean oil[0] to like $7/can for very fancy ones, with the average around $4.50/can for ones in olive oil. They're not gone, just more expensive than last year for nice ones.
[0] - sardines come packed in your choice of water, soybean oil, olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, tomato sauce, or louisiana-style hot sauce with additional selection choices of containing herbs or hot peppers or olives, and olive oil ones always cost more than water or soybean oil ones for obvious reasons
What a sad world we live in :(
Social medias have such a significant impact all over the planet, from overcrowded tourist spots dedicated to taking instagram pictures, to canned sardines diets.
Why do people fall for this kind of thing ? I still can't understand it. Is it all just an ego war ? That worries me
Destroying ecosystems beyond a tipping point. And the politicians just care about being re-elected. Focusing on short term gain.
” The decision taken by the Council of Ministers earlier this week on the 2024 fishing quotas in the Baltic Sea is in many ways unique. It shows a remarkable historical short-sightedness, ignorance of the fish and fishing in the inland sea, inability to understand the scientific advice of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and - perhaps most of all: the ministers are bending the laws that regulate fishing, ecosystems and the marine environment to the limit.”
https://balticwaters.org/en/baltic-sea-brief-60-the-final-he...
Canned sardines have been a staple of my diet since I was in the womb. I can’t wait for this trend to die off, it has been so difficult to find them lately. I mean I understand all of the reasons for it, and I can at least appreciate that sardines are the most sustainable form of fishery we have, but goddamn it is super frustrating.
Darn, originally from northern Europe, I have always enjoyed sardines. I was wondering why they are suddenly harder to get.
I can't believe a weight-loss fad is going to take "my" sardines from the shelves.
Also, why only sardines? Any fatty fish will serve the same purpose. I guess a fad is a fad.
I'm sad for King Arthur[1] who genuinely loves his tinned fish and wants to share his passion with the world. He is a good boi and not part of this trend.
I don't really like fish. I watch his videos more for the vibes. I did buy a can or two to give it a chance but I still just can't stand it.
Not to say that climate change isn't affecting this in some way, but the Pacific Ocean is known to oscillate between Sardine and Anchovy regimes [0][1].
[0] https://www.mbari.org/news/from-sardines-to-anchovies-and-ba...
So I've been thinking about this. It's more general than social media and sardines.
There are now areas of the world with overtourism. Santorini, arguably Venice, Machu Pichu and maybe even Barcelona have more tourists than they can support. It's becoming a huge problem. Why is this the case? It's in part because people have disposable income to visit these places but I think there's a larger issue of why people want to visit these places. I think there's a FOMO element and the idea is pushed by social media in particular and media in general.
As another example, I blame at least in part the crazy NYC rent situation on Sex and the City, particularly on rents in the West Village. If you've lived in NYC you know there's so many SATC girlies living out their NYC dreams and not all of them have trust funds. You see this reflected in rents too. One side of 14th Street is Chelsea. The other side is the West Village. Rents on the Chelsea side are significantly lower than the other side because people want to be able to say they live in the West Village.
On a smaller scale you see this where people seem to view themselves as the main character in a movie or TV show and they're living out these scenes in their heads, typically to video and post online. They can be really inconsiderate about it too. Like just today I saw a video that someone in a public beach "dared" go in the water while someone was trying to get a photo of themselves and that other person got in frame. It really is main character syndrome [1].
I think what made a lot of things good in the past was lack of information (and the resultant FOMO). You've seen this in food trends too when Omega-3 became big and fish stocks suffered or when palm oil became big and that's a big problem.
Interestingly, China has a system to try and prevent everyone flocking to one or two cities ("hukou") and it's hard not to see the argument for this.
I have several triggers when I'm doomscrolling. One of the worst is when someone says "I'm trying the viral (restaurant, dish, bakery, bar, whatever)..." I've always hated this because whatever it is is never worth it. But the psychology of people wanting to show off this way is fascinating. It really feels like people's lives are that empty that they just want that external validation.
[1]: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-to-know-about-main-c...
I've experienced this recently. My wife has osteoporosis and her doctor told her to eat sardines with bones to get more calcium. She doesn't like eating them straight, so she makes hummus and blends in two cans of sardines. That batch lasts two days, so she eats a tin a day. But in the past year we have had stretches of weeks where we couldn't get them.
Tinned sardines are convenient for toast, but if you want to cook with them it's crazy how much more you get your money from the fish counter.
Millions of people are doing 3 day sardine and coffee diets for weight loss?
People will believe anything.
Yes that's good, blame social media and not the absence of sufficient regulation or the unsustainable fishing industry.
"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area."
Sadly Agent Smith was not wrong there.
This is only going to get worse with AI and not just for food recommendations. Think "where do I go for a vacation" and then the recommendation is pretty much the same for everyone, and you end up in overcrowded places because everyone else got the same advice.
More and more I think we need to fix farmed fishing and stop cleaning the oceans of life. We don't, en mass, hunt for cows or chickens. We farm them. It has an impact but it doesn't take out the whole ecosystem either.
This is an AI generated article.
Luckily sardines are not a universally tasty treat and so this is just a temporary fad, until the fitness clique decides on the next big thing.
I've actually been wanting to try to raise my own. There is a freshwater member of the sardine/anchovy family native to Australia, Thryssa lackeyii. They're more towards the sardine size than anchovy, and they might (or might not) have an awful flavor. But they're not on the list of prohibited-for-import organisms, and I believe I'd just have to pay the fee for inspection on arrival.
"Stuff you should Know" recently did an episode on sardines. I tried a tin because it was cheap, and they're better than I anticipated.
If we can get TikTok addled zoomers to discover frozen dinners as well and reduce their burrito taxi usage.. we may just slay the inflation beast finally.
So I read the article and a good many comments and surprised no one has mentioned overharvesting by the fish oil pill industry as a major reason for the decline in culinary sardines.
This shortage has been discussed for years - long before overconsumption was even a drop in the bucket compared to the fish oil supplement industry.
I'd been noticing very spotty availability of sardines (a long-time fav of mine) going back to last October/November.
Some stores are out entirely, others will alternate through available brands over time, but often have slim pickings. I'd suspected an issue with fisheries, and am very sorry to see this confirmed.
I know this is about sardines, I like canned tuna, oysters and other things. Curious where social media is on the other canned items.
I was just grocery shopping yesterday (Philly) and there seemed to be no lack of the low quality sardines I normally see on the shelves every week? There are no "empty shelves" that I have seen in the two stores I normally shop at.
I noticed the scarcity a bit in the last few months. I have been giving them to my dog for years for the low mercury omega 3s -- I even had a veterinarian stamp of approval.
If we're going to continue to eat sea food, isn't plankton some of the best to eat? It's basically as low on the trophic chain as you can go, unless people start developing a taste for krill I guess.
My grandfather lived in a time when commercial hunting went from viable to being outlawed --- I was worried that my children might live in a time when commercial fishing ceases to be tenable, but now that seems a near certainty.
Consider that we now have more tons of ships in the sea than there are bony fish:
We have apparently reached the stage of the attention economy where even sardines can experience a demand shock because someone branded eating only one food for three days as a "diet"
The article and many comments here suggest that a “sardine” is a specific species of fish. In fact, about a dozen species are canned and sold as “sardines”.
Someone should use those same social networks to write en masse to those social influencers, the same message to them all:
> Look what you've done, dumbass
Just came from a 2 week vacation in Portugal, they even had their own fancy (and very colorful) shops where they only sold canned sardines. Never seen such a range of products.
It is a very emotionally loaded word to use. But I think it is fair and accurate to talk about the rape of the oceans.
Been to Trader Joe’s 3 weeks in a row now and I can’t find sardines anymore.
What will tinned fish review guy do now?
I think they did this with cottage cheese a few months ago and avocados a few years ago.