2001–2002 - California Sea Grant - UC San Diego

The goal is to understand what kinds of habitats—such as rock reef, kelp
forest, eel grass or sand and boulder—newly settled fish utilize and for how
long. Sampling will be conducted monthly at nine sites, and all sites will be
sampled within a two-week window to capture “pulses” of rockfish settlement.
The sites that will be monitored in California are Morro Bay,
Monterey Bay, Bodega Bay, Humboldt Bay, Fort Bragg and Crescent City.
The Oregon sites are Port Orford, Coos Bay and Newport.
The project is a collaborative effort led by California Sea Grant Extension,
with scientists from Oregon Sea Grant, the National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS), the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), the
South Slough Estuarine Research Reserve, the Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife, and the Pacific Marine Conservation Council. Both CDFG
and NMFS are in the process of developing fishery management plans for
rockfish species. McBride’s project complements an ongoing CDFG survey
of adult rockfish populations.
There are more than 60 species of rockfish off the U.S. West Coast.
Within the last decade, many of these stocks have plummeted to catastrophically
low levels, to the point that huge swaths of the shelf have been
closed to groundfish fishing. McBride said that some of these deep-water
species may use shallow water habitats during their early life stages,
migrating to deeper waters as they get older. The project may be able to
confirm whether this is true and for what species.
McBride is also hoping to work with fishermen to establish “index
sites,” which could be monitored as proxy estimates of young rockfish
abundance in the surrounding areas.
BALLAST WATER PROJECT ENTERS
FOURTH YEAR
Ballast water discharged from ships has been
identified as a primary means by which non-native
plants and animals are transported around the
globe and introduced into foreign coastal waters.
Most of these species die, but some of them not
only survive but thrive in their new habitats, often
displacing native species and altering native
habitats. This problem has caused millions of
dollars in economic and environmental damage
San Francisco Bay Counties
JODI CASSELL
Sea Grant Extension Program
300 Piedmont Avenue
Bldg. B, Room 227
San Bruno, California 94066
jlcassell@ucdavis.edu
Phone: (650) 871-7559
Fax: (650) 871-7399
http://ballast-outreach-ucsgep.ucdavis.edu
Photo: Michael Nevins, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
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