Of Seaweed, Sardines, and Science
A Sciku acknowledging an unexpected detective
Dried up detective of the deep: a science-haiku, “Sciku”
Common old seaweed
Seeps secrets to scientists,
Telling tales of death.
The Crash of the California Fisheries in the 1950s
Most of us have probably never heard of the crash of the California sardine fisheries in the 1950s, a bust that was heard around the world. The capture and canning of sardines was a massive industry in California, the largest industry of its kind in the Western hemisphere, pulling in more than a half-million tons of the tiny fish every year. The sardine fisheries in California employed over 30,000 workers and more than 4000 fishermen in the 1930s and 1940s.
Sardines are small, oily fish that were part of the food-chain that fed sea-birds, bigger fish, and marine mammals. But humans were the biggest consumer. During the depression era, sardines were in huge demand, a true budget food. Sardines were cheap, and families could make meals of them by mixing with tomato sauce and pouring over rice. Or, as my dad would often do, just eating them with crackers. During the Cold War, the government bought sardines for the…
