118 FISH AND GAME COMMISSION 



REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA STATE FISHERIES 



LABORATORY 



By W. L. Scofield, Acting Director 



INTRODUCTORY 



The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries of the Division of Fish 

 and Game carries on • research work in connection with the adminis- 

 tration of the fisheries of the state. This is not primarily for the pur- 

 pose of furthering fisheries science but the research work was initiated 

 because of the need felt for dependable basic information. It has been 

 continued and enlarged upon for reasons given later in this report. 



The first scientific inquiry was assigned piecemeal to various faculty 

 members and students at universities in the state. It was found that 

 many questions calling for investigation were intimately admin- 

 istrative problems. Also, the important research problems, whose solu- 

 tion was needed by the administrator, were found to require con- 

 tinuous inquiry over a term of years. Furthermore, the work was 

 found to involve state records and for these reasons it was considered 

 necessary that the state department should undertake the solution of 

 such problems as could not be handled by others. The California 

 State Fisheries Laboratory was therefore established for specific pur-^ 

 poses, as an aid in the management of the state's commercial fisheries 

 resources. 



Several fisheries research problems are still being conducted inde- 

 pendently of the state laboratory but under the personal direction of 

 the head of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. For example, 

 the life history studies of salmon, trout, striped bass and the census 

 of our seals and sea lions. Most of the work concerning the more 

 typically pelagic species is conducted at the California State Fisheries 

 Laboratory. This report will confine itself to the research activities 

 of the laboratory. 



POLICY 



The Division of Fish and Game, established originally as a "Fish 

 Commission," has always been committed to the policy of true con- 

 servation of our natural resources, that is, using rather than hording, 

 but using wisely. Wise use is plain business sense applied to con- 

 servation and means the fullest use possible up to the point where 

 the resource becomes overused and so depleted that future use is 

 thereby lessened. Full utilization gives the greatest possible benefit 

 to the people of the state from each resource but overutilization for 

 even a short period results in decreasing the use that may be made of 

 the resource. 



This common sense policy of wise use has nowhere been more 

 earnestly followed than in the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. 

 In order that a resource be used wisely it is necessary that the admin- 

 istrator should know the extent of the resource, the rate at w T hich it 

 is being utilized and especially should he determine the point where 

 overuse begins. It was for this reason that the Bureau of Com- 

 mercial Fisheries established the research branch, known as the Cali- 

 fornia State Fisheries Laboratory, and charged it with the task of sup- 

 plying essential information as to the rate of use being made of our fish- 



