West coast regulators have voted unanimously to ban commercial sardine fishing for the fifth straight year after a recent evaluation of the northern Pacific stock revealed a steep decline.
The ban on commercial sardine catch spans the entire length of the U.S. West Coast. The 2019 season would have opened July 1.
A new assessment of northern Pacific sardine stocks by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates populations of the small silvery fish have declined more than 98 percent since 2006.
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