January 8, 2026 — Of all the schemes that humans have devised to keep sea lions from gorging on the salmon of the Columbia River basin, none has worked for long. Local officials and researchers have chased sea lions with boats and peppered them with rubber bullets; they’ve detonated noisy explosives. They’ve outfitted the docks where the animals like to rest with uncomfortable spinners, electrified mats, flailing tube men, and motion-activated sprinklers. (“Very surprisingly, they don’t like to get wet on land,” Casey Clark, a marine-mammal biologist at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told me.) At one point, the Port of Astoria dispatched a 32-foot fiberglass replica of sea lions’ primary predator, the orca, outfitted with real orca sounds, that almost immediately capsized. Scientists have captured sea lions and released them thousands of miles away, as far as Southern California. No matter the tactic, the result is largely the same: Within weeks, or sometimes even hours, the sea lions swim right back.
Annual Arctic report card documents rising temperatures, melting glaciers
January 7, 2026 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued its annual Arctic Report Card, which documents the way rising temperatures, diminished ice, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and vegetation shifts are transforming the region and affecting its people.
The agency has released the report for 20 years as a way to track changes in the Arctic.
“The Arctic continues to warm faster than the global average, with the 10 years that comprise the last decade marking the 10 warmest years on record,” Steve Thur, NOAA’s acting administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research and the agency’s acting chief scientist, said at a news conference Dec. 16.
The report card is a peer-reviewed collaboration of more than 100 scientists from 13 countries, with numerous coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was officially released at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in New Orleans, where Thur and other officials held the news conference.
The report is the first under the second Trump administration, at a time when the federal government’s commitment to documenting Arctic climate change has diminished: The president has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and federal departments are cancelling climate change-related research and projects, as well as scrubbing climate information from public view.
A rare whale is having an encouraging season for births. Scientists warn it might still go extinct.
January 6, 2026 — One of the world’s rarest whale species is having more babies this year than in some recent seasons, but experts say many more young are needed to help stave off the possibility of extinction.
The North Atlantic right whale’s population numbers an estimated 384 animals and is slowly rising after several years of decline. The whales have gained more than 7% of their 2020 population, according to scientists who study them.
The whales give birth off the southeastern United States every winter before migrating north to feed. Researchers have identified 15 calves this winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.
That number is higher than two of the last three winters, but the species needs “approximately 50 or more calves per year for many years” to stop its decline and allow for recovery, NOAA said in a statement. The whales are vulnerable to collisions with large ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear.
Researchers Say the Oceans Have Passed a Milestone for Acidification
January 5, 2026 — The past 12 months have been worrying for researchers who study the chemistry of the ocean. More and more evidence has been published showing that human activities are fundamentally altering this chemistry in an acidic direction.
At the end of 2025, it seems clear ocean acidification is pushing the largest habitat on Earth into a risky zone.
Ocean acidification is part of the global carbon cycle. When carbon dioxide dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid. This acid releases hydrogen ions, which lower the seawater’s pH balance.
pH balance
This sliding scale of 14 points indicates the acid/alkaline balance of a solution. Position 1 indicates the highest acidity, 14 the highest alkalinity. It stands for “potential of hydrogen”, because the scale is determined by the concentration of hydrogen ions.
Carbon dioxide emitted by human activities may be largely released into the atmosphere, but it does not all stay there. Huge amounts are absorbed by the ocean. A study published in 2023 determined that the ocean absorbed 25% of anthropogenic CO2 emitted from the early 1960s to the late 2010s. This has so far saved humanity from greater global warming.
Because of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the past century, more CO2 has been taken up by the ocean, causing it to acidify.
Coalition of fishing groups, NGOs criticize MSC recertification of Amendment 80 Fleet
January 5, 2026 — A coalition of nonprofits, fishing organizations, and tribal groups are criticizing the recertification of the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska flatfish fishery, which includes the Amendment 80 trawling fleet, to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard claiming the process lacked transparency and amounts to “greenwashing.”
The Amendment 80 fleet targets Akta mackerel, Pacific cod, rock sole, yellowfin sole, flathead sole and Pacific Ocean Perch in the Bering Sea, and comprises roughly 20 groundfish-trawling vessels. The fishery was recently the subject of a battle over its allowed halibut bycatch after the North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to move to abundance-based management and reduce allowed bycatch, which lead to a lawsuit from the fishers that was ultimately dismissed.
OREGON: ODFW seeks nominee for Pacific Fisheries Management Council
December 31, 2025 — ODFW is accepting nominations for a seat on the Pacific Fishery Management Council. The three-year term for this Oregon at-large seat begins Aug. 11, 2026.
Anyone interested in being considered, or wishing to nominate someone, must contact Jessica Watson at 541-351-1196 or jessica.l.watson@odfw.oregon.gov. Completed application packets must be submitted no later than Jan. 23, 2026.
The Oregon at-large seat is currently held by Brad Pettinger, who is not eligible for re-appointment to another three-year term, since he has completed his full allotment of terms. ODFW will send all nominations to the Governor who will then forward the names of at least three candidates to the National Marine Fisheries Service (in the U.S. Department of Commerce) for consideration. Successful appointees must pass an extensive FBI background check.
Changes are coming to the Chesapeake Bay, thanks to climate change
December 31, 2025 — Warming temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are changing the Chesapeake Bay.
New kinds of fish are venturing to the bay and long-established species face challenges as their bodies respond to warmer temperatures and changing salinity — salt and ion levels — in bay waters, recent studies show.
“We know climate is warming, and so are the waters of the bay, and we’ve seen this in our own time,” said Mary C. Fabrizio, a professor of natural resources at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
“We need to look at all the processes in the body of the fish that are affected by temperature, things like growth, things like reproduction and feeding behaviors.” She said these include: “When do fish migrate up river to spawn, or when do fish return to the bay to feed? And how do fish use the bay as a nursery area?”
Canadian and US regulations are at odds in the Salish Sea, and whales are caught in the middle
December 30, 2025 — The Salish Sea is one ecosystem but Canada and the US are playing by different rules when it comes to protecting threatened whales, experts warn.
Endangered southern resident killer whales and at-risk humpbacks are blind to borders when transiting the transboundary waters in southern BC and northwestern Washington State that encompass the Strait of Georgia, Juan de Fuca Strait and Puget Sound, said Chloe Robinson, director of whales for Ocean Wise.
But an inconsistent patchwork of protection measures on either side of the border means the two whale species are increasingly vulnerable to ship strike, vessel disturbance, pollution, underwater noise and diminishing food sources, she said.
“The threats don’t change just because whales have crossed an invisible line,” Robinson said.
Problematic discrepancies exist between regulations around whale distance rules for boats, fisheries management, habitat protections and pollution standards, said Robinson, who led a comparative study of key conservation measures on each side of the border.
Both countries, along with provincial and state governments, need to align regulations, close protection gaps and reduce confusion for mariners, whale watching operations and vessels transiting the region to reduce cumulative stresses of whales, Robinson said.
There’s a dizzying mix of vessel approach distances and speed regulations for whale watching operators and recreational boaters on either side of the border depending on the type of whale and, in some cases, what they are doing, she added.
Conflicting Ocean Indicators Suggest Moderate Returns of Pacific Salmon
December 30, 2025 — Juvenile salmon encountered a mixed bag of ocean conditions off the West Coast in 2025, based on an annual analysis by NOAA Fisheries and Oregon State University researchers.
The researchers examine 16 ocean indicators, from temperature and salinity to the quantity and quality of food available to juvenile salmon during their first months in the ocean. That is a crucial period for young fish as they search for prey to grow big and fast enough to stay ahead of predators.
Researchers refined the indicators through years of monitoring. They help fish managers anticipate how many juvenile salmon will survive to grow large enough to be caught in fisheries or return to rivers as adults in the next few years. The insight can help shape fisheries worth millions of dollars to the coastal economy and ensure that recreational, commercial, and tribal fisheries continue at sustainable levels.
Federal government, opponents battle over right whale rule
December 23, 2025 — The federal government is trying to fend off a lawsuit challenging a boat speed limit designed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, which migrate each year to calving grounds off Northeast Florida and other parts of the Southeast.
U.S. Department of Justice attorneys Friday filed a motion asking a Florida federal judge to uphold the speed limit in a challenge filed by boat captain Gerald Eubanks, who was fined $14,250 for exceeding the limit while piloting a boat from Florida to South Carolina in 2022.
Friday’s motion and a competing motion filed in October by Eubanks’ attorneys seek summary judgments, which would effectively resolve the case without going to trial. U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell on Friday scheduled an April 10 hearing.
The lawsuit, which names as defendants the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, challenges the fine and the legitimacy of a rule that limits speeds to 10 knots for vessels that are over 65 feet during certain times and places off the East Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, includes the National Marine Fisheries Service.