April 29, 2014 — What is 208-feet long, glides through the ocean as silent as a gray whale, counts schools of fish with the speed of sound, and calls San Diego home? NOAA Fisheries’ new fishery survey vessel Reuben Lasker, the most advanced technology platform for monitoring fish, turtles, marine mammals and oceanography, will be placed in active service on Friday, 2 May 2014. NOAA will officially commission the ship at the Navy Pier, close to the ship’s permanent port in San Diego, California on the 10th Street Terminal.
The fishery survey vessel, Reuben Lasker, arrived in San Diego on 29 March 2014 after traveling 5000 miles from Norfolk, Virginia and through the Panama Canal, a 20-day journey. This distance is a pittance compared to the miles she is expected to rack up over the next many decades as a platform for researching fish, marine mammals and turtles off the U.S. West Coast and in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. “Reuben Lasker provides a living laboratory for monitoring ocean animals and their environment,” said Francisco Werner, Science Director of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) in La Jolla, CA. “She will support superior stock assessments and ecosystem-based management of the region’s living marine resources for today, tomorrow and future generations.”
“The addition of the sophisticated Reuben Lasker to our fleet of modern fisheries research vessels on the West Coast amplifies our ability to understand the ecosystem and inform wise management of its resources,” reiterates John Stein, Science Director of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, WA. “Together with the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada, we now have the capability to build highly refined stock assessments for valuable West Coast fisheries and conduct ecosystem and species-specific studies to support healthy and resilient coastal communities.
Read the full story from NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center