CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME, 
NOTES FROM THE STATE FISHERIES LABORATORY.* 
Witt F. THOMPSON, Hditor. 
THE FISHERIES LABORATORY AND 
ITS WORK. 
At the time these notes go to the 
editor, considerable progress has been 
made toward the establishment of a per- 
manent laboratory building for our work. 
The most encouraging advance in that 
direction has been the granting by the 
city of Los Angeles to the Fish and Game 
Commission of a long-term lease to a 
site at Fish Harbor, San Pedro. It is 
situated at the intersection of Seaside 
avenue and Tuna street, and will be most 
accessible to all canners and fishermen 
who may be interested. 
A description of the site and the dis- 
cussion of the plans for ithe building, of 
which rough sketches are at hand, may 
await the time when the plans are in 
finished condition, but it will be well to 
state now as clearly as possible those 
ideals to which the Commission is plan- 
ning to dedicate a unique institution. 
Such a statement may save misunder- 
standing and opposition, and should give 
to those interested an appreciation of the 
underlying purposes such as will enable 
them to comprehend the reasons for the 
choice of site and for the plans adopted. 
The site was chosen because of its 
proximity to the canneries and the fish 
wharves, making it possible to follow easily 
the progress of the fishery. The plans 
adopted are intended to give good working 
room for a statistical and biological study 
of the fisheries for the purpose of con- 
servation and adequate utilization and at 
the same time to allow an exhibit to 
those interested of the purposes of the 
work and its relation to the fisheries. 
That the primary purposes of the in- 
vestigations of the California Fish and 
Game Commission are conseryation and 
adequate utilization has been stated many 
times. But such purposes have been re- 
peatedly avowed by investigators, whose 
programs when adopted have betrayed a 
primary interest in general natural his- 
tory, and have shown little relationship 
to the problems to be solved. The scien- 
tific program of the Commission has, 
*California State Fisheries Laboratory, 
Contribution No. 21. 
however, been planned very specifically to 
meet the problems which are involved in 
governmental control of the fisheries, and 
are adapted to meet the responsibilities 
of the state as legal guardian of those 
natural resources. The machinery for the 
execution of this program is, in fact, al- 
ready operating in part, and its purposes 
are stated very clearly in the laws of the 
state as duties of the Commission. Sec- 
tion 1 of the particular law referred to 
is as follows: 
_ “Tt shall be the duty of the Fish and 
Game Commission to gather data of the 
commercial fisheries and to prepare the 
data so as to show the real abundance 
of the most important commercial fishes; 
to make such investigations of the biology 
of the various species of fish as will guide 
in the collection and preparation of the 
statistical information necessary to de- 
termine evidence of overfishing; to make 
such investigations as will bring to light 
as soon as possible those evidences of 
overfishing as are shown by changes in 
the age groups of any variety of fish; 
to determine what measures may be ad- 
visable to conserve any fishery, or to 
enlarge and assist any fishery where that 
may be done without danger to the 
supply.” 
The law then goes on to make pro- 
visions for the statistical system now in 
use as one of the bases for the scien- 
tifie work. This system is to the best of 
our knowledge one without parallel in any 
country, and it has already proved itself 
superior to any statistical system we are 
acquainted with. It registers the catch 
of every boat, leaving its record for sub- 
sequent study by scientists in conjunction 
with other records by which changes in 
apparatus and economic conditions may 
be discounted, in order that there may be 
obtained a measure of the fluctuations in 
abundance of fish from year to year. It 
will be inevitable, in the future, that any 
scientific program carried on by tthe pos- 
sessors of such complete records as by 
this law we shall eventually have, will be 
a program designed to discover the mean- 
ing of such records in terms of abundance 
and scarcity of fish. That there are 
faults in the system must be granted, 
but the faults are infinitesimal compared 
to those of statistical systems depending 
