John “Jaws” Williams writes:

Here is something about a century-old study that you may find interesting, and could file under “everything old is new again.”

In 1919, the California Division of Fish and Game began studying the developing sardine fishery in Monterey. Ten years later, W. L. Scofield published an amazingly through description of the fishery, the abstract of which begins as follows:

The object of this bulletin is to put on record a description of the Monterey sardine fishery which can be used as a basis for judging future changes in the conduct of this industry. Detailed knowledge of changes is essential to an understanding of the significance of total catch figures, or of records of catch per boat or per seine haul. It is particularly necessary when applying any form of catch analysis to a fishery as a means of illustrating the presence or absence of depletion or of natural fluctuations in supply.

As detailed in this and subsequent reports, the catch was initially limited by the market and the capacity of the fishing fleet, both of which grew rapidly for several decades and provided the background for John Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row.” Later, sardine population famously collapsed, and never recovered.

Sure enough, just as Scofield feared, scientists who did not understand the data subsequently misused it as reflecting the sardine population, as I pointed out in this letter (which got the usual kind of response). They got a result they liked, and didn’t want to think about the data.

The Division of Fisheries was not the only agency to publish detailed descriptive reports. The USGS and other agencies did as well, but generally they have gone out of style; they take a lot of time and field work, are expensive to publish, and don’t get the authors much credit.

This comes to mind because I am working on a paper about a debris flood on a stream in one of the University of California’s natural reserves, and the length limits for the relevant print journals don’t allow for a reasonable description of the event and a discussion of what it means. However, now I can write a separate and more complete description, and have it go as on-line supplementary material. There is some progress.