Science activity

In 1998, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, the California Department of Fish and Game, and the National Marine Fisheries Service began a cooperative effort to collect, archive, and enter into standardized database formats the information generated by fisheries resources agencies throughout California. Data for this project have been collected from a variety of government sources, such as the Department of Fish and Game and the US Forest Service, and non-government sources, such as tribal fisheries monitoring, university research, local watershed stewardship programs, and numerous additional fisheries stakeholders. The database contains a significant amount of information regarding the current and historic status of California's anadromous fish. The building and expansion of the cooperative anadromous fisheries abundance dataset is largely dependent on funding, support, and sharing the vision that this type of program in California is imperative. The wealth of this type of information that has already been compiled into the CalFish database demonstrates what can be accomplished through interagency cooperation.