In 1864 the Norwegian government asked Georg Ossian Sars, son of the pioneering Norwegian marine biologist Michael Sars, to determine why the cod catches from the Lofoten Islands in northern Norway fluctuated so greatly (Sars 1876,1879a). A few years later, after several visits to the coastal fisheries, Sars asked for and, to his surprise, was loaned a ship to extend his studies offshore. Within twenty years Norway had established a scientific agency to study the fluctuations in its fisheries, and had outfitted it with a ship, laboratories, and a fish hatchery. By the turn of the century many other countries had joined Norway in establishing agencies for the scientific study of their fisheries, many of which joined in an international research organization in 1901. What was it about fisheries that justified the creation, and continues to justify the funding, of national and international research programs?

The problem that Sars began to address more than 100 years ago was important then, and remains important today. Fish provide a significant source of human food, and fishing makes profits for fishing boat owners and fish processors and gives employment to fishermen. Fishing is a crucially important part of the livelihood in some areas, such as northern Norway where poor catches have meant hunger, the backdrop for Knut Hamsun's book by that name. Fish do not abide by political boundaries, and conflicts over who will fish where often erupt into international disputes such as the ‘cod wars’ between England and Iceland.