Sardines, part 1

Ketchikan

Many years ago I bought my wonderful spousal unit a silver sardine can pendant . At the time it was a pretty unique gift, but sadly there has been an explosion in this line of jewelry. The commodification of Sardine Can Necklaces. The SCN Cartel.

Let us be lovers; we’ll marry our fortunes together.
– Paul Simon

Anyhow, the necklace came from an on-line jewelry store in the small town of in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Full disclosure: you won’t be able to catch wild sardines in Ketchikan.

Ketchikan, a town of 8,192 people, receives a million visitors a year – mainly from cruise ships. So… back of the envelope calculation, that works out to 131 tourists per resident, mostly concentrated in a few summer months.

The town also receives, on average, about 12 and a half feet (3.8 meters) of rain a year. 233 rainy days a year.

Even at a population of 8,192, Ketchikan is the sixth-most populous city in the state. By comparison, the 6th largest city in Texas is El Paso, with a population of 677,456. In California this would be Sacramento, with a population of 525,000.

Perhaps most of us in the lower 48 have had fantasies about moving to Alaska. Or maybe it’s a guy thing….

Seth Bywater has a thoughtful article that addresses this escape fantasy. He recognizes that what one person considers a “pro” can be another person’s “con”, and that “pros” can turn into irrevocable “cons” pretty quickly.

In central Texas, the Ketchikan fantasy is fueled by:

the average daily high in summer is hotter that the all-time record high in Ketchikan.
fire ants everywhere
there is no “quick errand” ever – choking traffic, long lines, crowded stores, long, long, long lines at the DMV

Again reminds me of a line from The Pilgrim: Never knowing if believing is a blessing or a curse.

Do Sardines Make Good Pets?

Sadly, virtually all the search results (using a thing called “The Google”) answer this question by suggesting you feed sardines to your pets.

But Quora comes through….

Won’t somebody please think of the children?
https://youtu.be/q3D8670smTI

Sardine Info

The largest school of fish ever (LSOFE) is reported to be a school of sardines that measure up to seven miles long, two miles wide, and 30 feet deep.

Note: in doing the extensive research for this article (about 15 minutes), some sites quote the dimensions of this school of fish as 7km x 2km, not miles. So take the school size with a pinch of sea salt. And why hasn’t the ISO defined a unit fish school size?

I started wondering, what is it like to be an individual sardine in a school with a billion other fish? Then it hit me – what does it feel like to be a human on a planet with billions of other humans? Every person has a unique and personal journey, why can’t it be the same for a sardine? Who’s to say that a sardine doesn’t have dreams, experiences, struggles, joys, and sorrows? Hopes that their offspring will get into a good school?

Interesting quick-facts below. Please note that this site, though interesting, is chok-fulla-ads. Even with an ad blocker, you will be hammered with non-stop commodification of your web visit. This is another example of sardine exploitation – also known as sardisploitation.

https://a-z-animals.com/animals/sardines/

Freshwater Sardines

For those watching their sodium intake, there is one species of freshwater sardine – Sardinella tawilis. It is found exclusively in the Philippians, and only in a single lake: Taal Lake.