General Information
Life At Sea
Ship's Personnel
Welcome Aboard!
NOAA Ship DAVID STARR JORDAN
The DAVID STARR JORDAN conducts fisheries, oceanographic and living marine resource research in support of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) laboratory in La Jolla, CA (San Diego). The ship normally operates off the coast of California, U.S. and Baja California, Mexico in international waters. The vessel has sailed as far north as the Columbia River (Astoria, OR), as far south as Lima, Peru and as far west as the Tahitian and Hawaiian islands. The DAVID STARR JORDAN is a western rigged stern trawler designed for mid-water trawling, but is also capable of conducting bottom trawls, longline sets, plankton tows, oceanographic vertical casts, mud sample bottom grabs, scuba dives, and marine mammal and seabird surveys. The first survey ever conducted by DAVID STARR JORDAN was a CalCOFI (California Cooperative Fisheries Investigations) cruise in January 1966. The ship continues these quarterly surveys in conjunction with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA. Marine Mammal surveys continue to utilize one third of the scheduled sea time. The ship has been used extensively in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) for monitoring the dolphin-tuna associations, and in California waters to investigate the habitat and prey of blue whales and humpback whales. Projects for the 2000 field season include:
- CALCOFI
- Juvenile Rockfish Study
- Shark Longline
- STAR
Check out pictures from our last trip on the Life at Sea page
The Science
Check this Visitor's page for updates on the current project the DAVID STARR JORDAN is working on.