Stanley Fowler "played a key role in organizing the Australian Fisheries Conference which recommended in 1929 that a federal body be established to conduct a 'scientific, statistical and practical investigation of the fisheries, aimed at their commercial exploitation'. Transferring to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research as fisheries officer in 1935, he was involved in discussions that led to its fisheries investigations section (later fisheries division) being formed in 1937. Fowler immediately joined the new section." From the Australian Dictionary of Biography Volume 14 (1996)
From the Australian Dictionary of Biography Volume 14 (1996): "He was concerned that much of Australia's coastline had 'not been explored in a fisheries sense'. With the co-operation of the Royal Australian Air Force, in 1936-39 and 1942-46 he undertook a series of aerial observations of pelagic stock in coastal waters. Fowler spent hundreds of hours in the air, photographing often vast and previously unknown shoals of fish, including such species as the Australian salmon and bluefin tuna. The results were brilliant. His photographs-some 10,000 in all-are still frequently consulted by fisheries scientists and others interested in the Australian coastline."
August 1935
August 1935
Event - Commonwealth fisheries investigations transferred to CSIR; Stanley
Fowler seconded to CSIR; Prof. W. J. Dakin appointed marine biology
adviser
October 1936
October 1936
Event - First CSIR aerial survey offish stocks made by Stanley Fowler in a seagull
amphibian off NSW, Victoria, Tasmania