Summer 2023 California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations Survey

July 18, 2023

The 2023 CalCOFI Summer cruise will sail aboard Research Vessel Sally Ride from July 3-18 to survey the distributions and abundances of pelagic fish stocks, their prey, and their biotic and abiotic environments in the California Current.

Survey |

West Coast

The 2023 Summer CalCOFI Survey will take place July 3-18, 2023, aboard research vessel Sally Ride. This survey is an ongoing assessment of pelagic fish stocks between Morro Bay and La Jolla, California. Survey objectives are to monitor environmental conditions within the CalCOFI survey area, conduct continuous underway sampling of surface waters, record current profiles throughout the duration of the cruise with the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, and measure optical profiles within the California bight.

July 28, 2023

The summer CalCOFI cruise concluded on July 18 when the Scripps Oceanography R/V Sally Ride pulled back into her home port in Point Loma at ~4 pm. FRD CalCOFI members Amy Hays, Nico Concha Saiz, Noelle Bowlin and the rest of SIO CalCOFI team had a successful cruise even though several stations had to be skipped due to various reasons (see map and description below).

Map of CalCOFI transects along coastline — Map of the summer CalCOFI cruise plan. Daily progress is represented by the colored arrows, i.e. each color is the progress made for the date shown. Gray X’s are the two stations we could not occupy due to Naval activity. Green X’s are stations canceled to save time. The fuchsia X is the station canceled due to an anchored vessel in the way of our sampling activities.

July 14, 2023
The summer CalCOFI cruise aboard Scripps Oceanography R/V Sally Ride continues. On Sunday, July 9, FRD CalCOFI member, Nico Concha Saiz, joined his teammates just off Dana Point to provide some much-needed help with the sampling efforts. The ship was at a the inshore-most station on line 90.0 (see map below) when a hired water taxi took Nico from Dana Point Harbor. arriving alongside R/V Sally Ride in about 20 minutes. Nico climbed aboard and was helping with ichthyoplankton collections within minutes of his arrival. A big thanks goes out to FRD CalCOFI team members Tiffany Bachtel for retrieving supplies for the vessel engineers and Emily Gardner for driving Nico to Dana Point for the transfer.

Image of survey lines along coast — Map of the summer CalCOFI cruise plan. Daily progress is represented by the colored arrows, i.e., each color is the progress made for the date shown. Gray X’s are the two stations we could not occupy due to Naval activity. Green X stations were canceled to save time.

Hand holding petrel — Leach’s storm petrel receiving a Dawn soap bath to remove ship’s oil.

Several nights in a row, numerous Leach’s storm petrels were attracted to the lights of the vessel in the offshore stations and flew into the ship. The science team routinely scanned the decks to gently collect and safely place the storm petrels in cardboard boxes to help keep them calm before releasing them the following morning. One of these storm petrels landed in some ship oil. The bird observer on board, Brian Hoover (Farallon Institute), with help from Amy and Noelle, gave the bird a dawn soap sponge bath, followed by warm water rinsing, towel drying, and resting on a dry towel inside a box. This routine was conducted three separate times over several hours. Everyone was very happy the next morning when that particular bird looked dry, not oily, and flew when released in the wind.

July 7, 2023
FRD CalCOFI members, Noelle Bowlin and Amy Hays, are participating on the summer CalCOFI cruise aboard Scripps Oceanography R/V Sally Ride that departed San Diego on Monday, July 3. The sampling plan began with the stations on the southernmost line (93.3, see map below) just a couple hours steam from Point Loma, San Diego, working westward. The CalCOFI team, with researchers from the Fisheries Resources Division and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, completed line 93.3 on the evening of July 6. They are currently working their way inshore completing stations on line 90. So far, they are seeing lots of pyrosomes at the inshore stations.

The team has reported high spirits among the scientists, particularly because the four volunteers have been very energetic and enthusiastic about their participation, which has been very uplifting.

Specimen on plate with labelled card — (Right) A gorgeously intact hatchetfish collected with the Bongo net at station 93.3 50.0 (as noted on the label in the picture) during the summer CalCOFI cruise. This is a stunning specimen. Often, hatchetfishes are caught with parts of their beautiful silver skin scraped off by the net.

California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations Survey Logs

The California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) was initially formed in 1949 in response to the rapid decline of sardine stock off the coast of California. Seasonal CalCOFI surveys are now performed annually to monitor and assess oceanographic conditions, distribution and abundance of pelagic fish stocks, and their prey in the California Current ecosystem.

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