Catch of California commercial marine fisheries 1931-2005

This raster layer summarizes California Fish and Wildlife commercial fisheries catches from 1931-2005. Catches are reported on landing receipts (also known as ‘fish tickets’) and are recorded by fish dealers or processors at the port of landing. Summary catch statistics include market category, year, pounds landed, and spatial block. The time series includes species that are historically and/or currently important to the California fisheries economy and were binned into 10 broad taxonomic groups: groundfish, coastal pelagic species, salmonids, game fish, highly migratory species, abalone, market squid, echinoderms, Dungeness crab and other crustaceans. To improve the spatial accuracy of the catches, we used a bathymetric criteria for each taxonomic group based on depth range in which the species is most often encountered. For all taxonomic groups, we summarized the total catch for 75 years for each block and converted lbs to metric tons. To normalize the catch we divided the total catch by the area of the grid block or depth contour. Note that no catch-related effort information available with this dataset.


For further methods and information please see
Miller, R.R., J. Field, J. Santora, Monk, M.H., R. Kosaka, C. Thomson. 2017. Spatial valuation of California marine fisheries as an ecosystem service. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2016-0228