One fish, two fish—using a new MBARI-designed camera system to count rockfish

Over 90 species of rockfish are caught commercially off the West Coast of the United States, but some deep-water species have been severely affected by overfishing. To help these threatened populations recover, fisheries scientists need to know how many fish are out there and how large they are, so that fisheries managers can regulate where and how many fish can be caught each year. As part of this effort, MBARI recently partnered with The Nature Conservancy, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and other organizations to design a new camera system for counting threatened rockfish off the US West Coast.