Sardines are a fish many people know about. Extremely common in supermarkets and stores, they’re the “chicken of the sea.” These small fish swim in schools of thousands, twisting and turning in near unison. Mesmerizing. What’s cool about these fish is that they move together like a single animal. They have sensing organs called neurocysts to coordinate their moves and avoid predators. In the blink of an eye, the massive bowl of sardines you see could become a donut to avoid a hungry shark trying to snag a meal.
Yet sardines aren’t known for their neurocysts or their habits of swimming up to 100 miles to spawn their eggs to ensure genetic variability. No, sardines are known for how tasty they are. This leads to the biggest issue – fishing. It’s been a boom and bust history for the Pacific sardine fishery. During the 1920s through the 1940s, sardines were the most important and largest commercial fishery in California. Yet the high demand for canned fish, fish meat, and oil, this species was fished to nearly extinction. To save this dying species, a ban on fishing these creatures was enacted for nearly 20 years after the late 60’s. Nowadays, these animals are carefully regulated and monitored to account for any fluctuations in the population fishing might cause.