History of Fisheries Oceanography

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Assignment on
Name: Hafez Ahmad name: Md. Enamul haque
ID: 15207021 Assistant professor
Subject: Oceanography Institute of marine sciences and fisheries
Date: 18.11.16 University of Chittagong
Course: fisheries Oceanography (211)
Institute of marine sciences and fisheries
University of Chittagong
Fisheries Oceanography
History of fisheries Oceanography

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Fisheries Oceanography is the study of the distribution and abundance of a living marine resources,
focusing on how the life cycle of a commercial species is shaped by the physical and biological
characteristics of the ocean. Traditional fisheries management approaches estimate population abundance
levels as a function of the number of spawning adults without environmental or ecological input but the
field of fisheries oceanography has provided a framework to predict recruitment and define harvest
strategies within an ecosystem context.by seeking to elucidate mechanistic relationships between fish
species and their surrounding oceanic habitats, the field of fisheries oceanography aims to provide a solid
understanding of fish behavior ,population dynamics and fish history with an ecosystem perspective.
Fisheries Oceanography has long history of its development, improvement, contribution and struggle
against other sectors. In the past 100 years since the birth of fisheries oceanography ,research on the life
history fishes has been extensive .much progress has been made in identifying some factors such as feeding
success ,predation ,larvae survival. Today fisheries Oceanography is now one of the leading science for
commercial fishing in the Ocean. We are aware that Total Ocean is unexplored but fishing is doing almost
all continental shelf area and deep sea. Around the world commercial fishing is very important for not only
food supplement but also protein consumption. World marine fisheries is contributing a significance vital
proportion in the world economy. It is only possible for scientific development of fisheries Oceanography.
Many devoted scientists laid the foundation of fisheries Oceanography.
In this assignment only few marine fisheries scientists are discussed .they are spencer Fullerton
Baird, Johan Hjort, henry Bryant Bigelow, Oscar Elton sette, Lionel albert walford, William
Francis.
1. Spencer Fullerton Baird, 1823-1887
Spencer Fullerton Baird (February 3, 1823 – August 19,
1887) was an American naturalist, ornithologist,
ichthyologist, herpetologist, and museum curator.
Baird was the first curator to be named at the
Smithsonian Institution. He would eventually serve
as assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian from
1850 to 1878.As Secretary from 1878 until 1887.
He was dedicated to expanding the natural history
collections of the Smithsonian which he increased from
6,000 specimens in 1850 to over 2 million by the
time of his death. He published over 1,000 works during his lifetime.
Early life, education and contributions

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Spencer Fullerton Baird was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1823 in U.S. He became a self-trained
naturalist as a young man. He learned about the field from his brother, William, who was a birder. His father
was died of cholera when Baird was ten years old. As a young boy he attended Nottingham Academy in
Port Deposit, Maryland and public school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Baird attended Dickinson College and
earned his bachelor's and master's degrees, finishing the former in 1840. He taught natural history at
Dickinson starting in 1845.While at Dickinson, he did research, participated in collecting trips, did
specimen exchanges with other naturalists, and traveled frequently. He married Mary Helen Churchill in
1846. In 1848, their daughter, Lucy Hunter Baird, was born. He was awarded a grant, in 1848, from the
Smithsonian Institution to explore bone caves and the natural history of southeastern Pennsylvania. He
received his Ph.D. in physical science in 1856 from Dickinson College and later worked as a professor at
Dickinson
Professional career in different sectors
In 1850, Baird became the first curator at the Smithsonian Institution and the Permanent Secretary for the
American Association for the Advancement of Science .he served for three years there. Baird also was a
mentor to herpetologist Robert Kennicott. Eventually, he became the Assistant Secretary, serving under
Joseph Henry. As Assistant, Baird would help develop a publication and journal exchange, that provided
scientists around the world with publications they would have a hard time accessing. He supported the work
of William Stimpson, Robert Kennicott, Henry Ulke and Henry Bryant. Between his start as Assistant
Secretary and 1855, he worked with Joseph Henry to provide scientific equipment and needs to the United
States and Mexican Boundary Survey. In 1870, Baird was vacationing in Woods Hole, Massachusetts,
where he developed an interest in maritime research. He would go on to lead expeditions in Nova Scotia
and New England. On February 25, 1871, Ulysses S. Grant appointed Baird as the first Commissioner of
Fish and Fisheries for the United States Fish Commission. With Baird as Commissioner, the commission
sought opportunities to restock rivers with salmon and lakes with other food fish and the depletion of food
fish in coastal waters. Baird reported that humans were the reason for the decline of food fish in these
coastal areas. Individuals with access to shoreline property used weirs, or nets, to capture large amounts of
fish on the coast, which threatened the supply of fish on the coast. Baird used the U.S. Fish Commission to
limit human impact through a compromise by prohibiting the capture of fish in traps from 6pm on Fridays
until 6pm on Monday. He was highly active in developing fishing and fishery policies for the United
States. He helped instrumental in making Woods Hole the research venue . He was the primary writer of
A History of North American Birds, which was published in 1874 and continues to be an important
publication in ornithology today.
Spencer Fullerton Baird died on August 19, 1887.
2. Johan Hjort

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Johan Hjort (18 February 1869, in Christiania – 7 October 1948, in Oslo) was a Norwegian fisheries
scientist, marine zoologist, and oceanographer. He was among the most prominent and influential marine
zoologists of his time.
In 1894 he succeeded G. O. Sars as Research Fellow in
Fisheries. Hjort became the director at the Norwegian
Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, from 1900 to 1916. His
early influences abroad kept him involved in international
research work, and he was among the founding fathers of
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
(ICES) in 1902. He was the Norwegian delegate at ICES from
1902 to 1938, when he was elected President, a position he held
to his death in 1948. In 1924 he invented novel industrial
mechanical machinery for extraction of whale oil from blubber. He is also credited with being the "practical
inventor of shrimp fishery", on both sides of the Atlantic. The shrimp, in particular the deep-water shrimp
Pandalus borealis, were known species, but were considered rare and not worth looking for. Around 1898,
Hjort adapted earlier designs of deep-sea trawls on the soft bottoms of the deep Norwegian fjords and soon
discovered enormous stocks of Pandalus borealis. This at first did not impress the fishermen. As H. G.
Maurice, the 1920–1938 President of ICES, recalls, "Hjort wasted no time in argument. He went prawn
fishing, returned to harbor with a spectacular catch and dumped it on the quay. His fame will last both for
the contributions he made to oceanic biology, especially in that classic The Depths of the Ocean which he
published with Sir John Murray as a result of their North Atlantic expedition in 1910, and equally for his
remarkable pioneer achievements in practical fisheries research. All in a position to judge regard him as the
most outstanding personality in the ICES since its foundation in 1902; from that date until his death he
remained the Norwegian delegate and became its President in 1938.
His publications
1892: Zum Entwicklungscyklus der zusammengesetzen Ascidien. Zool. Anz. 15, 218–332.
1912 (with Sir John Murray): The Depths of the Ocean. Reprinted 1965 as Tomus xxxvii in the Historiae
Naturalis Classica series.
1914: Fluctuations in the Great Fisheries of Northern Europe. Rapports, Conceil Permanent International
pour l'Exploration de la Mer.
1921: The Unity of Science. Gyldendal, London.
1927: Utenrikspolitiske oplevelser under verdenskrigen (Foreign policy experiences during the world
war). Gyldendal Norsk Forlag.
1931: The Emperor's New Clothes. Confessions of a Biologist. (Also published in Norwegian and in
German.)
1933 (with G. Jahn and P. Ottestad): The Optimum Catch. Hvalrådets skrifter, 7, 92–127.
1935: Human Activities and the Study of Life in the Sea: An Essay on Methods of Research and
Experiment. The Geographical Review (American Geographical Society).
1937: The story of whaling. A parable of sociology. Sci. Mon., London, 45, 19–34.
1938: The Human Value of Biology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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1940: Tilbake til arbeidet (Back to work). Gyldendal Norsk Forlag.
1945: Krigen. Det store folkebedrag. Essays om dens problemer (The War: The Great Deception. Essays
on its Problems).
1948: The renaissance of the individual. Journal of the International Council for the Exploration of the
Sea, 15, 157–168.
3. Henry Bryant bigelow
Henry Bryant Bigelow was a pioneering American oceanographer and marine biologist. He was born in
October 3, 1879, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He is credited with describing 110 new species for
science and authoring some 100 scientific papers over the course of his career.
He was raised in Boston, but spent his summers in and around the
waters of Cape Cod, which inspired him to become an amateur
naturalist as a young man. His knowledge of natural things grew as a
student at Harvard University where, in his senior year, he had the
opportunity to accompany Alexander Agassiz, director of the school’s
Museum of Comparative Zoology, on an expedition to the Maldives
in the Indian Ocean
Bigelow accompanied Agassiz on several major marine science
expeditions including one aboard the Albatross in 1907. He began
working at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1905 and joined
Harvard's faculty in 1906 where he worked for 62 years. In 1911,
Bigelow was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences. He helped found the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
in 1930 and was its founding director. During his life he published
more than one hundred papers and several books. He was a world-
renowned expert on coelenterates and elasmobranchs.in 1948 Bigelow was awarded the Daniel Giraud
Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.
From 1912 to 1922, Bigelow conducted several extended studies aboard the U.S. Fisheries Service schooner
Grampus, eventually assembling three book-length monographs on the fish, plankton, and physical
oceanography of the Gulf. Bigelow’s work piqued the interest of Frank Lillie, then president of the Marine
Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., who proposed to the National Academy of Sciences they
establish a committee to examine the state and future of oceanography in the U.S. In 1928, Bigelow
prepared a report for the new committee, in which he outlined the importance of an interdisciplinary
approach to marine science. “We believe that our ventures in oceanography will be most profitable if we
regard the sea as dynamic, not as something static, and if we focus our attention on the cycle of life and
energy as a whole in the sea, instead of confining our individual outlook to one or another restricted phase,”
Bigelow wrote in his summary of the report. This work ultimately led to the founding of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in January 1930. Lillie and Bigelow worked together to secure funding
from the Rockefeller Foundation and in February of that year, the foundation committed $2 million for
buildings and endowment, and continued to support its work for the next decade. Bigelow took the helm as
the Institution's first director and set to work gathering a team of researchers who could fulfill his
interdisciplinary vision. Among his recruits were Alfred Redfield, a professor of physiology at Harvard
Medical School and one of Bigelow’s closest friends, and Columbus Iselin, a former student of Bigelow’s
at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology who later succeeded him as director of WHOI in 1940.

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With Iselin, Bigelow also helped design the first purpose-built oceanographic research vessel in the U.S.
and the first in a long line of ships operated by WHOI—the steel-hulled ketch Atlantis.
After stepping down as director of WHOI in 1939, Bigelow spent 10 years as President of the Board and
another decade in the honorary role of Founder Chairman, all the while maintaining a professorship at
Harvard. He retired in 1967 and passed away that same year at the age of 88, survived by his wife Elizabeth
and two of his children. The July 1968 issue of Oceanus magazine was dedicated to Bigelow’s legacy, and
contained testimonials by his friends and colleagues of his scientific achievements and his leadership. Many
admired Bigelow for his sense of discovery, which helped motivate those who worked with him to explore
the ocean in a new way. “Though his excitement was in the discovery of new facts, he was not one to be
concerned primarily with learning more and more about less and less,” said Redfield. “He encouraged new
fields of inquiry and broadened our conception of what marine science could be.”
Bigelow’s published work extends over 68 years and covers a wide range of fields, but he will always be
remembered as one of the founders of modern oceanography
Died: December 11, 1967, Concord, Massachusetts, United States
4. William Francis Thompson
William Francis Thompson (1888-1965) was a preeminent fishery North American fisheries scientist of
the early to mid-twentieth century. He
was born in St. Cloud, Minnesota,
in1888, Will Thompson moved west
with his family to Everett, Wash, in
1903.
Early life, education and
contributions
He had an early interest in the study of
natural history and majored in zoology
at the University
Of Washington, Seattle, from 1906 to
1909. In 1909 Thompson transferred
from the University of Washington to
Stanford University where he became
a research assistant to Jordan. Thompson graduated with a B.A. degree in zoology in 1911 and published
ten papers on the taxonomy of marine fishes during1910–14, mainly as junior author with Jordan (Dunn,
2001a).
He received his Ph.D. in 1930 from Stanford University. Thompson was then entrusted by the Provincial
Fisheries Department to undertake a comprehensive, full-time investigation of the Pacific halibut,
Hippoglossus stenolepis, in British Columbia. Thompson conducted an intensive study of this species from
1914 to 1917 and published the results in seven landmark papers (Dunn, 2001a). In 1917 research on the
halibut began to wind down as concern intensified in Canada over the ravages of World War I. Thompson
was then hired by the California Fish and Game Commission to investigate that state’s marine fisheries.
While there, he helped found, and direct, the Commission’s first marine fisheries research laboratory.
Thompson focused his investigations initially on the albacore tuna, Thunnus alalunga, and then on the

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Pacific sardine, Sardinops sagax, as the commercial harvest of this latter species began to increase (Dunn,
2001b). Thompson was appointed Director of the School of Fisheries (now the School of Aquatic and
Fishery Sciences), University of Washington, in 1930. This appointment was initially a part-time position
in addition to his duties at the International Fisheries Commission (Stickney, 1989). Thompson was the
Director of the School of Fisheries for over 17 years (1930–1947). During his tenure, the school developed
into a preeminent facility to train fishery scientists, and it graduated many individuals who subsequently
became prominent fishery scientists and leaders in fisheries research and administration (Stickney, 1989).
Thompson visited Bristol Bay, reviewed much of the available data on the salmon fisheries of the region,
and wrote a report to the packers. He called for long-term studies of the runs to various watersheds of Bristol
Bay and noted that such investigations were then lacking. The salmon packers funded an expanded
investigation by Thompson in 1946 and 1947. Thompson became the “expert” on salmon of Alaska and the
Pacific Northwest, and he was involved in most aspects of salmon research. Thompson maintained close
relations with the Alaska salmon industry. He generally received broad support from industry and
government for his research. Thompson retired from the directorship of the Fisheries Research Institute in
1958 at the age of 70. He remained active as a consultant to various fishery agencies, including the Bureau
of Commercial Fisheries (now the National Marine Fisheries Service), the International North Pacific
Fisheries Commission, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Thompson also remained close to the salmon
fishing industry as an advisor.
William Thompson died on 7 November 1965 (Van Cleve, 1966). He left a legacy as a preeminent fishery
scientist of his era. He influenced a myriad of fishery scientists by studying the characteristics of the
fisheries, rather than the environment, to develop management strategies (Kendall and Duker, 1998).
Thompson’s work with the halibut and salmon of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska became classic. He
published about 150 scientific papers and was known for his original studies of population dynamics of
commercial fishes. Under Thompson’s leadership, the School of Fisheries at the University of Washington
became world-renowned. He was the doctoral advisor for many of the principal scientists who carried out
fishery work on the Pacific coast after World War II. He was also the major fishery researcher on the West
Coast during the interlude between the two World Wars (Scheiber, 1994). Thompson helped found the
American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists in 1956 to insure high standards in the profession.
5. Oscar Elton sette
Oscar Elton Sette is an internationally recognized leader in marine science. His ability has speeded progress
in the knowledge of the sea and its resources and reflected prestige and credit upon the Bureau of
Commercial Fisheries and the Department. He was born in 1900.
Since joining the Bureau of Fisheries, a predecessor agency of the Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of
Commercial Fisheries, on January 8, 1924, he has made outstanding contributions, not only as a scientist,

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but also as an organizer of investigations, eminent administrator, and an unusually successful teacher. He
has always placed special importance on the training of scientists under his supervision and has devoted
much time and effort to their development. These efforts have had an important influence upon fishery
science in the United States and Canada. That such things should be said of a man who has already made a
significant impact for the good upon society is appropriate and expected. But I find two earlier statements
of perhaps greater interest for they show that his attributes were recognized at the very earliest stage of his
career.
W.F. Thompson was Director of the
fledgling California State Fisheries
Laboratory. He employed a young college
student, O.E. Sette, apparently in
1919, and wrote this for the January 1921
issue of “California Fish and Game” .Mr.
O.E. Sette, who has been with the
[California] Commission for more than a
year, has also returned to his college work,
having left for Stanford on September 1
[1920].The Commission is fortunate in
being able to retain the interest and
services of Mr. Sette, whose work has been of high value. Then, in January 1924.The fisheries investigation
work of the Commission appears to be a training school for government fisheries men. O.E. Sette has
accepted a prominent position with the United States Bureau of Fisheries. Although discouraging, those in
charge are planning to carry on by acquiring the best material available to fill these positions.
The NOAA Ship R/V Oscar Elton Sette is named for Dr. Oscar Elton Sette, a pioneer in the development
of fisheries oceanography and, according to many fisheries scientists, the father of modem fisheries
oceanography in the United States. He is recognized both nationally and internationally for many significant
contributions to marine fisheries research.
6. Lionel albert walford
Dr. Lionel A. Walford, a marine biologist and former director of the Sandy Hook Marine Laboratory of the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Highlands. He was born in 1905.

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Dr. Walford was director of the Sandy Hook laboratory
from 1960 to 1971, when he became senior scientist. He
held that position until 1974, when he was appointed
executive director of the New Jersey Marine Sciences
Consortium. In recent years he had been the consortium's
senior scientist in charge of Federal sea grants for New
Jersey. Dr. Walford, a native of California, graduated
from Stanford University and earned his Ph.D. degree in
biology at Harvard University.
A large part of his 42‐year career was spent in
Washington, starting in 1936, when he joined the Bureau
of Fisheries of the Fish and Wildlife Service. From 1948
to 1958 he was the agency's chief of the branch of fishery
biology. From 1958 to 1960, he was director of the
Washington Biology Laboratory, a division of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Dr. Walford was also scientific
adviser to several international fishery commissions. He was the author of “Game Fishes of the Pacific
Coast from Alaska to the Equator,” recently reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution; “Living Resources of
the Sea,” and co‐author with Bruce L.
The great marine fisheries scientist died in 1979.
References:
1: www.wikipedia.org
2: class lecture
3: William Francis Thompson (1888–1965): a Preeminent Fishery Biologist of the Early and Mid-Twentieth
Century by J. RICHARD DUNN.
3:www.acoustics.washington.edu
4. The fate of fisheries Oceanography: introduction to special issue by Steven j. bograd, Elliott l. hazan,
Evan a. Howell, Anne B. hollowed
5. Joel K. liopiz, Robert K. cowen, Martha J. hauff. December 2014.Vol.27.No.4.Early life history and
fisheries oceanography: new question in changing world