Warming waters and overfishing have decimated Portugal’s sardine fishery, but tough measures may be bringing the critical fish back from the brink
In 2020, a monitoring campaign by the Portuguese Institute of Sea and Atmosphere and the Spanish Oceanography Institute announced some good news: a sardine biomass increase of around 110,000 tons—the most exciting rise in the past 15 years.
Purse seine fishers, with a fleet of almost 130 vessels, catch 98 percent of the sardines along Portugal’s coast. Average catches have declined precipitously since 1995, driving sardine prices to their highest in the past 20 years.To observe a traditional sardine catch off Portugal’s coast, fisherman Fábio Mateus invites me aboard his trawler. Mateus worries about the legislative pressures that weigh heavily on the Portuguese fishing industry.
About five miles off the Cape of São Vicente, the balmy night air does nothing to blur Mateus’s laser-focused gaze, even though it’s nearly dawn. Our journey, he hopes, will document a recovery of the Portuguese sardine population after a decade of legal restrictions on fishing. Mateus and most of his fisher colleagues believe they’ve reached a turning point.
On the trip back to the Sagres fish market, with some 6,500 pounds of sardines aboard, the fishers celebrate. “So, was I right or was I wrong?” Mateus teases.—cultivating fish in controlled aquatic environments—may aid in the species’ recovery. Blind tests have shown that consumers, while stating a preference for natural sardines, cannot tell the difference in flavor between natural and farmed fish.
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