CalCOFI, San Diego, CA (2025)

CalCOFI conducts oceanographic cruises off southern and central California four times a year. Research partners Scripps Institution of Oceanography, NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center, & California Department of Fish & Wildlife conduct ecosystem monitoring on these seasonal research cruises.

12/05/2024

🎉 Celebrating 75 years of groundbreaking ocean research and conservation! 🌊

🎂 Join us in honoring CALCOFI’s legacy of dedication, innovation, and environmental stewardship, past and present.

Here’s to the next chapter of discovery and impact on our oceans. 🌎💙

Thanks to our MANY contributors throughout these years! 🙌

Photo descriptions: Some past and present CalCOFI contributors, cakes of CalCOFI during the day and at night, CalCOFI Bingo (Bongo), Bingo callers, Dr. Elizabeth Venrick in a video from CalCOFI's 40th year anniversary.

10/23/2024

🌊 Dive into your dream job! 🌊

✨ We are looking for a new director of the CalCOFI SIO Oceanography team. ✨

✨ Apply today! Filing date is 11/8/2024 https://employment.ucsd.edu/calcofi-director-132541/job/28609765

09/11/2024

As you may have heard, this summer Southern California had a salp bloom… but what exactly is a salp? 🤔

Salps are gelatinous planktonic animals that belong to the Tunicate Phylum.

With over 20 species, these animals move through the water by contracting and pumping water in and out of their bodies.

Their constant moving up and down the water column makes them excellent at cycling nutrients throughout the depths of the ocean! (swipe to the very end to see some local San Diego divers swimming through an abundance of salps🤿🤿)

Salps have incredibly complex life cycles and can reproduce both sexually and asexually.

We can see them in their solitary life stage (pic 2), as well as in very long aggregate salp chains (pic 3).

On the summer CalCOFI cruise, we saw huge numbers and patches of high density of these cool gelatinous organisms nearshore, and we couldn't help but snap a pic of with some of them!✨✨

Have you ever seen salps in the ocean? Share them with us! 🚢
📸 photo credits:
Moira Galbraith (solitary Salpa aspera)
(underwater photo)

09/06/2024

🌊🚢 Exciting news from the ocean! The CalCOFI ship is out in full force, conducting vital research off the coast of Manhattan Beach. Dive into the latest advancements in marine science and see how these efforts help us understand and protect our precious ocean ecosystems. 🌿🔬

08/23/2024

🦅 On the summer CalCOFI cruise 2408, CalCOFI birder Dr. Tammy Russell made some exciting observations - she saw 4 different species of bo***es (Family Sulidae)!!

🦅 Dr. Russell’s final Sulidae counts were:

🦜Two (one female adult, one juvenile) Cocos/brown bo***es in transect (4 total including those off transect). Note: these were just classified as a separate species from brown bo***es in other parts of the world.

🦜 Four juvenile masked bo***es

🦜 One adult red-footed b***y

🦜 Two adult Nazca bo***es

🦅 Dr. Russell’s recent research found that these four species are increasing in their abundance, northward occurrence, and range area within the CCE, and pulses in their distribution here are linked with warm water events, especially the last few large marine heatwaves. In addition, blue-footed bo***es are increasing here, but not at the rate or in the same way as these four. Both Cocos and blue-footed bo***es now breed off of Santa Barbara Island.

🦅 Two other interestings observations on the cruise: a red-billed tropicbird and a Hawaiian petrel (endangered). Both breed on Hawaiian Islands.

🦅 Dr. Russell noted that overall seabird abundance was low, even in coastal regions.

🦅 Dr. Russell has two seabird papers in prep so stay tuned for more of her findings!!

Images: 1. Masked b***y (juvenile) 2. Three Masked bo***es 3. Nazca b***y 4. Cocos/Brown b***y 5. Red-footed b***y 6. Dr. Tammy Russell 7. Two Masked bo***es (juveniles)

Photo credit: Tammy Russell

09/19/2023

Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System CeNCOOS

Address

San Diego, CA
92037

Website

http://www.calcofi.org/

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