Contacts:
Peter James MacCracken, APR | pjm@strategic-communications.com | (619) 275-4110
Celina Maggi | cmaggi@hswri.org | (619) 909-3449

Anglers love white sea bass. They’re fun to catch and taste great. In the 1950s, recreational fishermen caught about 50,000 sea bass a year in California waters.

The number fell to about 1,000 in the 1980s, mostly due to overfishing and loss of habitat. Hubbs is trying to reverse the numbers by releasing thousands of hatchery-grown bass in the ocean. Shane will spend much of the summer visiting recreational and commercial landings from San Diego to Santa Barbara where he will run a wand over the head of newly caught bass. The wand will detect whether the fish carries a scientific tag implanted by Hubbs.

“The tag is so tiny you can’t see it with the naked eye,” Shane said. “We’ve been studying these fish for years and still don’t understand a lot about its seasonal movements in the wild. These sensors help us figure out what’s going on.”

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Link to Publication

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/story/2023-05-17/summer-field-research-san-diego-2023