Home | Moss Landing

1. Port-at-a-Glance

A port in Monterey Bay on California’s central coast, the settlement of Moss Landing was established in 1866, quickly becoming an important shipping and transit location for the region. However, occupying the ancestral homeland of the Ohlone/Costanoan, Moss Landing has been an important area for Tribal use of natural resources for thousands of years.

Agriculture and whaling were the mainstays of the local economy for decades. As the whaling industry died out, Moss Landing’s fishing sector grew out of the sardine fishery and canning industry. Fishing has remained one of Moss Landing’s most important sectors both economically and culturally, although the fisheries on which it has been most dependent have shifted over time. Currently, important fisheries for the port include market squid, coastal pelagic species (primarily Pacific sardine and northern anchovy), groundfish and salmon. Although salmon remains a significant species for local fishers, landings have decreased since the mid-1980s as a result of declining fish returns and more restrictive management measures. The Pacific sardine and groundfish fishery became more productive as fishing technologies improved. However, in the last twenty years both fisheries suffered significant declines and were declared disasters he groundfish fishery was declared a federal fishery disaster in 2000 following a sharp decline in landings of these species and overcapitalization in the fishery (Source). And after a boom-and-bust cycle in the 1950s, sardines were again declared a disaster in 2015.

Such declines in high volume fisheries have profound impacts on the processing sector and community. From 1998 to 2021, the number of fish business licenses active in Moss Landing has decreased by more than half. The number of commercial fishing licenses associated with the port has decreased from 62 in 2000 to 20 in 2021. Currently, market squid is the port’s primary fishery by value and by weight. In 2021, commercial fishery landings at Moss Landing accounted for 15% of total landings and 6% of total ex-vessel value in California.