April 15, 2021 — In a surprising turn, the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee rejected a Southwest Fisheries Science Center catch-only sardine biomass projection when the Council met this week.
NMFS field surveys were cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and no real directed fishery in the U.S. has been conducted on sardines since 2015. The catch-only projection was supposed to be the basis for the fishery’s management measures for the season from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.