Current Status of Accomplishment or Milestone: The data have been compiled and annotated. The server has been developed and tested. Refinements are being made and data will be available online by November 2002.
Background: Monthly commercial landings of fish and shellfish have been recorded and published by the state of California since 1928. The state is divided into 6 port regions from north to south, and excludes fish caught north or south of the state boundaries, providing both temporal and spatial resolution. The database grows from an average of 35 species or market categories per port in the early years, to 240 species in recent years, times 6 ports and 12 months for 73 years for a total of over 450,000 entries. We want to provide user friendly online access to the California regional landings. This information is currently available only as printed tables published by the California Department of Fish and Game in their Fish Bulletin series from 1928 through 1976. Since 1977, they have been available only as unpublished data reports or through the Pacific Fisheries Information Network (PacFIN ).
Purpose of Activity/Goal of Project: This project will provide easy online access for fisheries scientists, students, and the public, to a historical time series of monthly regional fish and shellfish landings for California from 1928 to 2000 and beyond. We will also provide graphical displays of the time series. Access to this data will be especially useful for NMFS scientists analyzing changes in fish landings in relation to climate variability.
Description of Accomplishment and Significant Results: The data series have been entered, compiled, reconciled for name changes, and annotated to help the user. The Live Access Server, developed by NOAA’s PMEL, has been modified to accommodate these data on our server. Graphical display routines have been developed to run on the user’s request. Users can request and immediately obtain a monthly or annual time series of landings for any listed species or group of species, for the whole state or any combination of the 6 regions. Access is available on our website http://www.pfeg.noaa.gov through our Live Access Data Server.
Significance of Accomplishment (e.g., to the Center, to Management, and to NMFS Strategic plan Goals): Access to this data will be especially useful for NMFS scientists examining changes in fish landings in relation to climate variability for assessment of sustainability of stocks.