AP Bulletin: Last Sardine Cannery in U.S. Closes April 18, 2010

IT'S TRUE. The Stinson Seafood Cannery in Gouldsboro, Maine shut it doors on April 18th, 2010 after a century of good, hard work bringing Sardines and Naked Apes together, using those cool little cans that have the wind-up keys on them.

I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FEEL ABOUT THIS. You know I like to see the shaved monkeys being recruited by operatives of all sorts: on the fin, fried, baked and canned in oil. But our Sardine sisters DO need a break now and then, as anyone would, and certainly the cards and letters POUR INTO MY OFFICE asking for transfers of duty. Isn't a century of canned-recruitment detail LONG ENOUGH? they ask, and who am I to say no? WE CERTAINLY HAVE OTHER METHODS.

The article in front of me says that Bumble Bee Foods, of which Stinson is a subsidiary, blames reduced fishing quotas for the closure. But of course OUR GALS have been simply REFUSING TO SHOW UP since before the new quotas were instituted. Not just the Sardines, either. Strangely, though, the clandestine photographs -- taken and forwarded to me by land-based operatives -- of the supermarket shelves across the country reflect that there are PLENTY of canned Sardines available, just as there are still PLENTY OF BREADED COD in the freezer section, 20 years after those fisheries closed down due to lack of interest. HOW DOES THAT WORK AGAIN?

The article I found online says that 130 Naked Apes are losing their jobs out of this deal. They skim over the fact that even in Stinson's sorry showing last year, producing "only" 30 million cans -- down from a 1950 peak of 350 million -- A GREAT MANY MORE SARDINES THAN FEATHERLESS BIPEDS ARE LOSING THEIR JOBS.

Wait, I keep forgetting. Before humans came along, fish never NEEDED jobs, did they?