California Cooperative Anadromous Fish and Habitat Data Program (CalFish) is a multi-agency cooperative program designed to gather, maintain, and disseminate fish and aquatic habitat data for California’s fisheries. There are many programs in California that are actively gathering, compiling, and analyzing fish and aquatic habitat data. Bringing all of this information together and making it available to a variety of users is crucial to the success of fisheries and habitat monitoring, evaluation, and management within the state.

Centralizing access to California fisheries data facilitates the development and maintenance of statewide data standards and promotes further development of related data programs in California. CalFish addresses the needs of a variety of natural resource management agencies by serving as both data publisher and data clearinghouse, providing access to original data and links to sites with related fish and aquatic habitat information.

Data & Tools

CalFish provides direct access to many different types of fish and aquatic habitat data. These data include:

• Population trends and counts
• Distribution
• Migration barriers
• Hatcheries
• Habitat restoration projects
• Genetics
• Monitoring

Users can view these data via two basic methods: querying the database tables directly or querying the data geographically. The geographical queries are made possible with an interactive online mapping system. This system also provides access to a broad array of framework data (e.g., political boundaries, hydrography, quad maps, and many more) that make the spatial data easier to analyze and understand. Because the tabular and geographical databases are linked, users can move easily between the two systems. CalFish also maintains a comprehensive and up-to-date list of links to a wide variety of fish and aquatic habitat data programs as well as a document library containing references for CalFish datasets and other relevant resources.

Partners CalFish is a cooperative program involving a growing number of agency and organization partners including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), California Department of Water Resources (DWR), California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), California Natural Resources Agency, California State Coastal Conservancy, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Such cooperative support has and will continue to guide the future development of CalFish and ensure the continued usefulness of the CalFish site.

Additional Information

Visit the California Cooperative Anadromous Fish and Habitat Data Program (CalFish) website at: www.calfish.org.

For more information from the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC) about CalFish contact Stan Allen, Senior Program Manager, by email to sallen@psmfc.org, or call 503.595.3100.