Collaboration between government researchers and fishermen is proving to be a cost-effective way to improve knowledge of the resource and defray management costs.

California’s wetfish industry has invested heavily in research since early times.

In 1949, during a period of low sardine abundance, a cooperative research consortium – the California Cooperative Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) – was formed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), and Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). California’s wetfish industry assessed the wetfish harvest at $1 per ton to help jumpstart this cooperative research program.

Research, including systematic at-sea oceanographic, egg, fish, and plankton sampling was conducted quarterly at predetermined permanent stations. CalCOFI has become one of the premier research endeavors in North America and now has one of the most significant and continuous fisheries, biological, and oceanographic data sets that exist worldwide. The data collected provide the basis for much of the US central and southern west coast fisheries analyses.

Today CWPA’s cooperative research program continues the tradition, expanding knowledge of market squid and sardine, in collaboration with the Department of Fish and Game and NMFS Southwest Fishery Science Center.

Please visit our Squid Research and Sardine Research pages to learn more about these industry-sponsored research programs.