In Arthur McEvoy and Harry Schreiber's article “A Study of the Post-1945 California Sardine Depletion,” they talk about the disastrous results that occurred due to the excessive sardine fishing along the California coast. The sardine fishery in California was recklessly unregulated because of the large profits it was making during the mid-1930s, when the fishery was at its peak. The authors state that “It provided one-quarter of the entire tonnage of fish landed in the United States at the time” (McEvoy 393). The California fishing industry not only supplied canned goods, but also supplied materials for industrial uses both domestically and internationally. During the First World War, sardine fishing grew exponentially. Modern inventions have made it possible to produce greater numbers of sardines from places like San Pedro and Monterey in California. One study shows that “yields increased at a staggering rate, from less than 30,000 tons landed in California in the 1916-1917 season to their historic peak of more than 720,000 tons in 1936-1937” (McEvoy 395). It wasn't until after World War II and the Depression that the sardine industry took a hit. Due to the lack of control in coastal waters, the depletion of fisheries has begun to worry scientists. Continuous fishing for many years did not allow the fish to survive. Even with irrefutable evidence that the massive quantities of sardine catches caused sardine depletion, the MRC concluded after 15 years that it had still not found the reason why sardines declined. Over time and putting aside their differences, the agencies concluded that the depletion of sardines was the result of overfishing. Even though it was too late for the sardines, the agencies still used their grant money to explore information about ocean currents and sardine-related phenomena.