Eastern Atlantic Ocean Plankton Pastures Where Sardines Once Found Plankton A Plenty Have Become Clear Blue Deserts

Sardines, a staple food of Europe for more than a thousand years, are simply withering away from starvation.

The fish, never very large, are now half the size they were just a decade ago.

Even more horrifying the fish which used to live for 10 years are now living barely 12 months.

Scientists at the French oceanographic institute, Ifremer, have just now reported on their 12-year extensive survey of sardines of the Mediterranean sea and the Bay of Biscay in the Atlantic are in terrible condition. The sardines of the Med show the biggest reduction in measurements, often only 1/3 their normal size, the Atlantic sardines have lost half their size. Both are carrying just half the fat they carried just 12 years ago.

Portugal’s Patron Saint Anthony had to appeal to the fishes to listen to his sermons when they dutifully did so, the people of Portugal got the message that their fish were all important. Now it seems the people have forgotten again.

The shrinking sardines, plankton eaters almost at the bottom of the ocean food chain, are decimating other larger species, for whom sardines have been their primary food, like cod and seabirds. In 2008 fishermen called for the research as they raised the alarm over their shrinking fish. Most of the sardines they were catching were too small to sell, even to the canneries.

‘The Baltic cod have turn into so slim that they seem like sardines,’ biologist Ms. Ulrich stated.

In this time, Mediterranean sardines have shrunk from an average length of 5.1 inches (13 cm) to 3.9 inches (10 cm) while their sardine cousins in the Bay of Biscay have shortened from 7.1 inches (18 cm) to 5.5 inches (14 cm). When the loss of fat and girth in the fish is taken into account the average shrinking is about 50%.

In the Mediterranean, the sardine biomass is just 1/3 what it was ten years and landings have declined from 20,000 tonnes to 2,000 tonnes. In addition, these small fish live shorter lives.

Shrinking sardines of Europe are now reaching a crisis point.

The team’s investigation has ruled out predation, overfishing, and disease as the cause of these changes in the sardine populations. Clearly the sardines are unable to thrive on ocean pastures that are no longer producing lush nourishing plankton blooms.

The evidence is clear that this is a long term trend in ocean pasture collapse. Only a determined effort to restore the pastures offers hope to save the sardines.

‘For sardines and anchovies in the Bay of Biscay and in the Gulf of Lion [in the Mediterranean], we are leaning toward environmental things linked to the fall in the quantity of food items accessible,’ stated biologist Clara Ulric

60 years of data show 70% of the vital ocean plankton in the N.E. Atlantic have simply vanished. We can and must restore their ocean pastures to their recent condition of health and abundance. Click to read more

Sardines feed off of microscopic plankton — a food source that has become increasingly scares and also considerably less wholesome. The trouble is that vital nutrients that keep ocean plankton pastures healthy and abundant are not reaching the blooms

Together with lessening their measurement, the diminishing food in quantity and quality is revealed in early death. The lifespan of these sardine has always been about 10 years, but today they are lucky to live as long as 12 short months.

Pacific herring, a close relative to the European sardine have been shown to have a vital behavior, the young follow the adults to learn! Without the adults to teach the young where to swim to spawn they miss out on that vital teaching and fail to thrive. https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/05/29/young-herring-go-with-the-older-fish-a-key-finding-in-ocean-modeling-forums-efforts/

‘It’s very alarming to see fish so ruined,’ Foundation of the Sea institute president Sabine Roux de Bézieux — who regards the new found conclusions to be proof of a major crisis — told Europe 1 radio.

‘It’s a sign of the really undesirable health and fitness of the encompassing natural environment.’

The shrinking sardines are not confined to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Similar trends are being seen in the Baltic Sea, the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific Ocean. Everywhere the ocean pastures are dying.

Soon the only sardines available in Lisbon may be in souvenir shops.

Just two years ago the government of Portugal declared a 15-year fishing moratorium on fishing of sardines. European fisheries experts had reported that it was highly probable (95%+) that “it would take 15 years without fishing” to rebuild the catchable sardine stock of fish over one year old off the Iberian coast.

The government had to back away from the action to save the sardines when fishermen and people of Portugal responded with outrage threatening to throw the government out. It is a tragedy that the government listened to the fishermen and people and not to the teachings of Portugal’s Patron Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony had centuries ago admonished the people of Portugal to pay attention to the fish and respect them.

To avoid the political unrest the government reinstated the fishing for sardines. But now with this new devastating report perhaps the people and the government will reconsider and decide to care for these vital fish. Only by caring for the sardines ocean pastures will they survive.

In 2012 we restored a 10,000km sq. ocean salmon pasture in the North Pacific, the result was the very next year the largest catch of salmon in all of history was caught in near-by Alaska. Click to read more

The demise or even extinction of European sardines is a crisis that is entirely and immediately resolvable. We have proven we can restore ocean plankton pastures to Bring Back The Fish immediately.

The science and know-how has been developed at the cost of nearly half a billion Euro’s over the past 30 years by the world’s top ocean science institutes and private industry. It is tested and proven safe and sustainable.

We can and we must do what Saint Anthony admonished us to do, take care of the fish and they will take care of us. Read everywhere on this blog how this will work. Contact your member of parliament and demand that they get on board with us as we prepare to set sail to restore the ocean pastures to historic health and abundance and Bring Back The Fish.