Due to rapidly declining sardine population numbers, federal regulators agreed yesterday to halt commercial sardine fishing off the west coast from Mexico to Canada immediately and close next year’s season as well. Regulators hope to prevent the level of fishery collapse that famously affected Monterey Bay’s Cannery Row.

Sardine populations have been under pressure from a combination of overfishing, warming ocean temperatures and marine mammal predation.

The sardine fishery is one of the most lucrative fisheries in the state of California.

Read the full article here.