Canary Current

But scores of fish meal ships now plunder those waters, sending their catch to dozens of fish meal factories in Mauritania, Senegal, and Gambia.

Though new regulations have limited fishing intensity, Mauritania has been especially attractive because its waters are unusually rich in marine life, fed by a robust nutrient upwelling, upwelling that the Canary Current generates along the coast.

There, Chinese and Turkish ships sweep up bonga shad, sardines, and round and flat sardinella, species known as forage fish, which are toward the bottom of the food chain and are eaten by other marine life and seabirds.

They're also eaten by humans.