FOR years, the only kind of sardines available to the average American were packed in oil, water or tomato sauce, sold in little rectangular cans, first with keys and later with pop-tops.
But because they’re plentiful and not endangered as a species (and full of healthful omega-3 fatty acids), fresh sardines are enjoying something of a renaissance. It helps that they’re delicious and inexpensive.
You’re likely to see them on the menus of fancy restaurants, usually as appetizers and usually “grilled.” I use quotation marks because what restaurants advertise as grilled sardines are usually broiled, for two reasons. One is that few restaurants are equipped to do real grilling. The other is that it’s extremely difficult to grill a sardine. Their flesh is so fragile they fall apart. (Wrapping them in grape leaves or paper-thin prosciutto slices is an option, but that process is a pain and decidedly unnecessary.)
The sardine catch around British Columbia’s (BC) Vancouver Island has been soaring in recent years. Fishers in Ucluelet, Zeballos, Port Hardy and other resource-dependent communities caught 22,000 tonnes of sardines in 2010 – just a tiny fraction of the schools some describe as hundreds of m long.
“I’ve seen them on the west coast of Vancouver Island thick enough to walk on,” said Barron Carswell, senior manager of marine fisheries and seafood policy for the provincial Agriculture Ministry.
“It’s incredible. They are all over the place. You can go into little bays and the surface of the water is all sardines,” he marvelled, reports Vancouver Sun.
The sardine harvest in 2009 exceeded 15,000 tonnes — 10 times the amount compared to when sardines received commercial fishery status two years before, and grew to CAD 29 million (USD 30.2 million) from CAD 1.4 million (USD 1.46 million) in 2007. The harvest gives work to fishing vessels and processing facilities in rural resource-dependent communities on Vancouver Island.
In Ucluelet, Zeballos and Port Hardy, more than 14,000 tonnes of sardines have been processed through partnerships between commercial companies and First Nations.
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 resourcedependent communities like Ucluelet, Zeballos and Port Hardy harvested 22,000 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.
As higher amounts of carbon dioxide become absorbed by the oceans, some marine organisms are finding it’s a struggle to adjust.
The Changing Planet series explores the impact that climate change is having on our planet, and is provided by the National Science Foundation & NBC Learn.
LOS ANGELES — Three weeks after a huge fish die-off in Southern California, officials have a body count but still can’t say what drove 175 tons of sardines into a marina.
Dave Caron, professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California, said Thursday that as many as 2.5 million sardines blanketed the surface and floor of King Harbor Marina.
