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- a world renowned Ph.D. Oceanographer. See his obituary below.
Los Angeles Time, May 9, 20011
Garth Ivor Murphy
Garth Ivor Murphy, 78, Scripps Institution of Oceanography ichthyologist who obtained early moratoriums on the commercial fishing of Pacific sardines and mackerel, died Saturday in Woodland, Calif., near Sacramento, of heart failure.
Murphy studied the mysterious decline of sardines and other species after joining Scripps in 1959 as its first full-time coordinator of California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations. His discoveries and insistence on controls to prevent overfishing revolutionized fisheries management to consider environmental factors and harvest levels.
After earning degrees from UC Berkeley, Murphy became the first person to earn a doctorate from Scripps in 1965. He joined the La Jolla-based institute after serving in France during World War II and working for the California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife office.
Murphy later taught oceanography at the University of Hawaii and worked in fisheries research for Australia and Japan.
The San Diego Union-Tribune, California, May 10, 2001
Garth I. Murphy
After several years of studying Pacific fisheries, Garth I. Murphy helped settle a prolonged controversy regarding the decline of the Pacific sardine.
In showing that commercial fishing was the most likely cause of the shrinking sardine population, his research at what today is UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography led to statewide moratoriums on catching sardines and mackerel.
Dr. Murphy, who pioneered sardine population studies in the 1960s as the first full-time coordinator of California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations, died Saturday at a skilled nursing facility in Woodland. He was 78.
The cause of death was heart failure, said son-in-law Josh Fox.
From 1959 to 1965, Dr. Murphy coordinated California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations, better known as CalCOFI, which works in conjunction with Scripps, the state Department of Fish and Game and the National Marine Fisheries.
Its objective at the time was to reach a consensus on the cause of the decline in the California sardine population.
" 'Cannery Row' is no more," proclaimed a CalCOFI report issued in 1963, referring to the demise of the expanse of cannerys along Ocean View Avenue in Monterey that John Steinbeck's 1945 novel had examined.
Billions of pounds of sardines had been caught off California in the 1930s and 1940s, supporting a thriving cannery industry. At one time, sardines were caught in greater numbers than any fish in North America.
But they practically vanished from the West Coast in the 1950s, putting thousands of cannery workers, fishermen and truckers out of work.
A statewide ban on sardine fishing was imposed from 1967 to 1986, followed by a resurgence in the sardine population.
Dr. Murphy was credited with writing the first systematic study of Pacific sardine population dynamics in 1966 by Arthur McEvoy, author of "The Fisherman's Problem: Ecology and Law in California Fisheries, 1850-1980."
Dr. Murphy proposed what became known in fishery circles as "the great experiment" -- a sardine fishery limited to 10,000 tons coupled with a 200,000-ton anchovy fishery, undertaken under close scientific observation.
He issued the proposal after documenting a steep rise in the anchovy population, which coincided with the sardine decline. Anchovies are rivals of sardines in the same habitat.
Completing his doctoral dissertation on the population dynamics of the Pacific sardine, Dr. Murphy received a doctorate in oceanography in 1965. He then left Scripps to become a professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii, but the impact of his work with CalCOFI was felt for years in the fishing industry.
While based in Hawaii, he served from 1969 to 1971 as a consultant to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
In 1974, he left his professorship to become senior principal research scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, a research arm of Australian fisheries.
"He was somewhat of a legendary figure in Canberra fishery management circles at the time, with a type of guru status," said John Hampton, a principal fisheries scientist with Commonwealth. "I was always impressed by his sharpness of mind and learned a lot from him."
Before retiring in the early 1990s, he worked as a fisheries consultant for the Japanese government.
Dr. Murphy was born in Portland, Ore., and graduated from high school in Sacramento. He first came to Scripps in 1946 as a graduate student after earning a bachelor's degree at the University of California Berkeley.
He earned a master's at Berkeley in 1948 and, before returning to Scripps, worked for the state Department of Fish and Game in fisheries research and management and as investigations coordinator for Pacific Ocean Fisheries.
Dr. Murphy, who was divorced three times, is survived by daughters Susan Jean Wilson of Hanalei, Hawaii, Jan Burns of Honolulu, Lauren Siegel of Austin, Texas, and Bettina Murphy of Albany; sons, Garth David of Baja California and Eric of Byron Bay, Australia; a sister, Nadine Vasquez of Sacramento; nine grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren.
A family service is pending.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1922 - 2001 (78 years)