Which factors affect landings in the California Current sardine fishery?

Jonathan Sweeney, University of California Santa Cruz and NOAA SWFSC, La Jolla, United States, Barbara Muhling, University of California - Santa Cruz, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, San Diego, CA, United States, Desiree Tommasi, University of California Santa Cruz and NOAA SWFSC, La Jolla, CA, United States and , University of Santa Cruz and NOAA SWFSC, La Jolla, United States
Abstract:
Climate resilient fisheries must respond to changing ocean conditions to offset impacts to fishery landings. Identifying the factors that limit or facilitate fishers’ response to climate variability lays the groundwork for decision makers to design policies that mitigate the effects of climate change on fisheries. We fit a Bayesian hierarchical spatial model to data from the sardine fishery operating in the California Current. Using this model, we examine the relative impact of target species availability, sardine price, fishing costs, fishery capacity, federal and state fishery regulations, and port processing infrastructure on fishery landings from 1981 to 2019. As well as identifying key factors that mediate fishers’ ability to respond to climate variability, this paper introduces a statistical modelling framework that can be efficiently implemented to link species distribution models to fishery landings in management strategy evaluations with fine scale spatial and temporal resolution.
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