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Where are you buying them ? Some countries call the younger fish "sardines" and older ones of the same species "pilchards", both have been sold for food for a long time. Maybe this is just a change in how they are labelled.

Central USA. I'm not sure what is legally considered a sardine here, but it's definitely something to look into.

I too eat canned sardines regularly and have for many years, have not noticed any such thing.

There is a seasonality to them though, just like with most natural wild foods.

As far as wild-caught seafood goes Sardines are of least concern.

Could just be that there are more of them, due to less predators (the bigger fish), therefore the average size is bigger/older

Human induced evolution is happening with wild salmon.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3352430/