The program persists, as scientists continue to increase their understanding of the link between environment and fisheries. The goal of SWFSC scientists has been to apply knowledge of the early life history of fish to the assessment of fish stocks.

“The Southwest Fisheries Science Center, within the context of CalCOFI, revolutionized fisheries stock assessment,” says Elizabeth Venrick, a Scripps researcher and CalCOFI participant. The fisheries service had never embarked on such a comprehensive survey over such a large area. Rising to the challenge, SWFSC developed new techniques and equipment—now used worldwide—to examine spawning biomass, eggs and larvae, and juvenile fish populations.

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These days the sardine is making a comeback, and CalCOFI is not as extensive as it once was. Researchers from the program now make quarterly cruises to the current study area—from San Diego to Point Conception north of Santa Barbara—which encompasses about a third of the original area. But the history and importance of the program will sustain CalCOFI. The California Current is the best ecologically understood marine region in the world, a direct result of the CalCOFI program. According to MLRG director and CalCOFI researcher Michael Mullin, “The growing awareness of large-scale environmental change, which CalCOFI has been so important in documenting, has made the program a model that other institutions would like to emulate.”

In 1958 CalCOFI scientists held a symposium on “The Changing Pacific Ocean in 1957 and 1958,” attended by oceanographers, fisheries personnel, and meteorologists. Following the symposium the program’s approach to the sardine question became more interdisciplinary and ecosystem-based. Fluctuations in fisheries yields could be understood only by studying the links between the ocean and the atmosphere and the variability of these systems within different scales of time and space.

Email the author: Jennifer Chung