This is a coastal fish that forms large schools (Whitehead 1985). It is found at depths to 200 m. In the California region, Pilchards make northward migrations early in the summer and travel back south again in autumn. With each year of life, the migration becomes longer (Hart 1973). In the Gulf of California, some individuals spawn in their first year, but most spawn in their second year (Whitehead 1985). In Australia (as Sardinops neopilchardus), it breeds in spring and summer in the southern part of its range, and in summer and autumn in the northern part. This is apparently related to seasonal movement of the limiting isotherms, occurring in autumn to early spring. It was believed that individual Australian Pilchards only spawn once or twice in a season (Blackburn 1960), but research on related species suggests that they may spawn a number of times (Hunter and Goldberg 1980). Batch fecundities range from about 10,000 eggs in 13 cm long females to about 45,000 eggs in females of about 18 cm (Fletcher and Tregonning 1992). It feeds on zooplankton and other small invertebrates, and it has pelagic eggs and larvae.

Red List Category

Red List Criteria

Year Assessed

Assessor/s

Reviewer/s

Contributor/s

No population data is available for this subspecies.

Unknown

Currently, there are no major threats to this subspecies. However, ENSO and fishing pressure may cause future declines.

Widespread hypoxia and massive eruptions of noxious, radiatively active gases currently characterize the world's strongest eastern ocean upwelling zone. A theory supported by modelling results and observations, suggests that the world's coastal upwelling zones will undergo progressive intensification in response to greenhouse gas buildup. This presents the prospect of progressive development of similarly degraded marine ecosystems in additional regions, and the prospect of a contributing feedback loop involving associated additions to the global buildup rate of greenhouse gases. This would result in further increases in upwelling intensity and the creation of additional sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Abundant sardine stocks of this subspecies that are exposed to fishing pressure might be a mitigating factor opposing the process, but at the same time the populations are collapsing. (Bakun and Weeks 2004)

The fishing of this pelagic fish started in 1950, and reached a peak of captures of >12 million t. A combined effect of a strong ENSO in 1972/1973, overfishing and possibly other large-scale oceanographic changes in the Humbolt current region, led to a collapse of the population of this sardine that was one of the more dominant fish. During early 1980, pelagic harvests remained low, but following the 1984 ENSO event, harvests rose again. In 1994, harvests reached the level of year 1972. Until 1991, the harvests were around 3.0 million t, but the harvest of this sardine had already recently decreased in this region in 1999 to very low values of 300,000 t. It seems that ENSO may have positive and negative effects on the population. Changes in world atmospheric circulation patterns, possibly a consequence of global warming, have been proposed to have effects on its population as well (Wolff et al. 2003).

This subspecies is important for commercial fisheries. It is used for fishmeal and oil. The main area of harvesting is the northeastern Pacific in Mexico. The harvest was around 4,189,889 t in 1990 and seines were the primary catching method (Bianchi et al. 1993). It is marketed fresh, frozen or canned, and is typically utilized for fishmeal, but is also eaten fried and broiled (FAO 1992).

There are no known conservation measures for this subspecies. However, its distribution includes a number of Marine Protected Areas in the central tropical eastern Pacific region.