Similarities between Indian oil sardine Sardinella longiceps Valenciennes, 1847 and global sardine fisheries and its management

Small pelagic fishes categorized as Herrings, Anchovies and Sardine (HAS) in FAO fisheries statistics have contributed to world fish landings considerably; ranging from 42.7% of the world marine fish production in 1964 and to a low of 19% in 2014. An analysis of commercially important sardine fishery across the globe during last six decades from 1956 to 2015 was attempted which indicated that there is considerable variation in the magnitude of production between countries and species. Comparison of variation in fishery of four species of Sardinops, one species of Sardina and seven species of Sardinella clearly indicated that the landing of oil sardine (Sardinella longiceps) from the Indian sub-continent is considerably higher than that of most major sardine species across the globe. During the last decade (2006 to 2015), the average landing of oil sardine was 0.50 x 106 tonnes and was ranked second among sardine group, first being Sardina pilchardus (1.11 x 106 tonnes). In the present manuscript, the spatial pattern of the contribution of each country to world sardine production (long term and decadal average) and its deviation have been plotted on a GIS platform. The extensive investigations spanning over 60 years on the large scale fluctuations on sardine -anchovy fisheries in the Pacific and Atlantic has identified impacts of regime shifts and other environmental variations, eco-biological changes, overfishing or a combination of all these on the decline and revival of sardine biomasses. Similar detailed investigations covering larval ecology and sardine habitat variations are yet to be attempted for the tropical Asian sardine resources. Considering the global significance of oil sardine population along the coastal upwelling zone of south-eastern Arabian Sea, it is suggested that collaborative integrated research on small pelagics of Southeast Asia be planned and developed to increase the efficiency of predictive modelling. The various management measures adopted globally for sardines is also presented which would support decision making for planners to support the livelihood of fishers when sardine stocks decline drastically