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1. Port-at-a-Glance

Ventura is a port on the southern California coast in the Santa Barbara Channel region. The Spanish colonized Ventura in 1782 with the founding of the San Buenaventura Mission. Ventura has been an important area for the Chumash peoples for thousands of years.

Ventura was incorporated as an American city in 1866. Oil led the city’s economic growth in the early 1900s, however, it soon became one of the states’ most important citrus-producing regions. Since the mid 20th century, the port has been an important location for commercial and recreational fishing. Ventura Harbor was built in the 1960s to support the area’s emerging squid fishery. Fishing has remained an important sector for the port both economically and culturally, although the fisheries on which it has been most dependent have shifted somewhat over time.

Currently, important fisheries for the port include market squid, California spiny lobster, and spot prawn. Groundfish was once an important year-round fishery for the port, however, the West Coast-wide fishery was declared a federal fishery disaster in 2000 following a sharp decline in landings of these species and overcapitalization in the fishery (Source). The red sea urchin was also once an important fishery, however, the fishery went into decline following the loss of the Japanese export market in the late 1990s and never recovered, despite a growing domestic market. The California spiny lobster and spot prawn fisheries have grown in value and landings at the port since the mid-2000s. From 2003 to 2021, the number of fish business licenses active in Ventura has decreased overall by almost half.

The number of commercial fishing licenses associated with the port has only decreased slightly from 143 in 2000 to 133 in 2021. In terms of both fish business licenses and fishing licenses, the port’s total number declined in the mid-2000s but then increased in the 2010s. Currently, market squid is the port’s primary fishery by both weight and ex-vessel value. In 2021, landings at Ventura Harbor accounted for 16% of California’s total landings.