October 16, 2019 — A fishing industry group says it has new findings supporting its contention that there is a healthy population of anchovies, which is counter to a nonprofit’s lawsuit challenging how the number of anchovies are determined. Meanwhile, Monterey fishermen say there are tons of the little guys in the local fishery.
Gino Pennisi and Neil Guglielmo have been fishing out of Monterey for years, in Guglielmo’s case, since 1956. Both say anchovies are plentiful.
“They were so thick for a while you could walk up them,” Pennisi said, adding that right now they have moved north to Moss Landing and San Francisco. “They have tails; they move.”
But the nonprofit group Oceana argues the number of anchovies federal agencies state are not accurate and as a result can misstate the population and allow limits greater than the population would support.
Anchovies are critical to marine life in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Pelicans, sea lions and humpback whales all depend on the Northern Anchovy as a food source.
The California Wetfish Producers Association, a fishing industry trade group, on Thursday released data showing California anchovies are at record levels. The data was compiled by the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations, a partnership of the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries Service and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.