Saving Seafood

Council Actions

ASMFC 2025 Summer Meeting Final Supplemental Materials Now Available

August 1, 2025 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Final supplemental materials for the Commission’s 2025 Summer Meeting are now available at https://asmfc.org/events/2025-summer-meeting/ for the following Boards. Links can be found under Supplemental 2 (following the respective Board’s agenda).

 
American Lobster Management Board – Public Comment   
 
Atlantic Menhaden Management Board – Public Comment
 
Webinar Information
Meeting proceedings will be broadcast daily via webinar beginning Tuesday, August 5 at 10 AM and continuing daily until the conclusion of the meeting (expected to be 11:45 AM on Thursday, August 7). To register for the webinar, please go to: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8127397986650630485 (Webinar ID: 230-697-115). If you are joining the webinar but will not be using VoIP, you may also call in at +1 (914) 614-3221, access code 949-913-944. A PIN will be provided to you after joining the webinar. For those who will not be joining the webinar but would like to listen in to the audio portion only, press the # key when asked for a PIN.
 
Each day, the webinar will begin 15 minutes prior to the start of the first meeting so that people can troubleshoot any connectivity or audio issues they may encounter.  If you are having issues with the webinar (connecting to or audio related issues), please contact Chris Jacobs at 703.842.0790.
 
Meeting Process
Board chairs will ask both in-person and virtual board members if they wish to speak. In-person members can simply raise their hands at the meeting without logging on to the webinar, while virtual members will raise their hands on the webinar. The chair will work with staff to compile the list of speakers, balancing the flow of questions/comments between in-person and virtual attendees. The same process will be used for public comment. Depending upon the number of commenters, the board chair will decide how to allocate the available time on the agenda (typically 10 minutes) to the number of people who want to speak.
 
We look forward to seeing you at the Summer Meeting.

Experts warn US, seabed mining sector’s defiance of International Seabed Authority could have wider consequences

August 1, 2025 — Experts returning from the annual meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, warn increased efforts by The Metals Company (TMC) and the U.S. government to start seabed mining – despite a lack of  authority approval – could have wider implications for the health of global fisheries and the rule of law at sea.

The push by TMC to start seabed minign comes as experts continue to assert the scientific knowledge needed to effectively and safely regulate mining of the deep seabed is still incomplete. Despite the continued pressure from regulatory bodies, TMC recently announced plans to commercialize its mining operation in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) – an environmental management area in the Pacific Ocean.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Latest Trump order sets tariffs hitting top seafood trading partners and billions worth of seafood

August 1, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on 31 July codifying a new swath of tariffs on dozens of countries.

The order comes as an 1 August deadline, set after Trump threatened increased tariffs before pausing their implementation days later, passes. The new order further modifies tariff rates and implements a range of different tariffs on 69 countries and the European Union as a whole.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

BOEM cancels all offshore Wind Energy Area designations

August 1, 2025 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) dealt a massive blow against offshore wind on 30 July by abruptly rescinding all Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) it had designated on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), canceling years of planning dating back to 2014.

“By rescinding WEAs, BOEM is ending the federal practice of designating large areas of the OCS for speculative wind development and is de-designating over 3.5 million acres of unleased federal waters previously targeted for offshore wind development across the Gulf of America, Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, California, Oregon, and the Central Atlantic,” BOEM said in a statement.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

2022 and 2023 Combined Report of Marine Mammal Strandings in the United States

August 1, 2025 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries released the 2022 and 2023 Combined Report of Marine Mammal Strandings in the United States. It includes information on confirmed cetacean (whale, dolphin, and porpoise) and pinniped (seal, fur seal, and sea lion) stranding rates, trends, and activities in the United States. In 2022, there were 6,061 confirmed strandings; in 2023, there were 6,648. The number of confirmed strandings in these years is comparable to the 16-year (2006-2021) average.

Responding to stranding events is essential for minimizing risks to public health and safety from stranded marine mammals and providing for animal welfare. And it is an essential resource for scientific information, management tools and decisions, and law enforcement investigations.

This is the fifth installment in a series of annual stranding reports compiled by the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. Overviews for the previous reports are on our website.

How to Report a Stranded Marine Mammal

The Stranding Network relies on reports of stranded marine mammals by the public to save animals in distress and understand causes of injuries and mortalities. If you come across a stranded marine mammal, remain a safe and legal distance from the animal. Please report the animal to your regional 24/7 hotline. The most important information to collect is:

  • Date and time
  • Location of the stranding (including latitude and longitude, if known)
  • Number of animals
  • Condition of the animal (alive or dead)
  • Species (if known)

Photos or videos from different angles and from a safe and legal distance can provide valuable information to Stranding Network responders. Stranded marine mammals are large, wild, unpredictable, and may have diseases that are transmissible to people. For these reasons—as well as legal requirements—only trained and authorized responders should approach or pick up a stranded marine mammal.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

Federal regulators eliminate Gulf of Maine wind power zone

July 31, 2025 — The Trump administration has erased all wind energy areas in federal waters, including two million acres in the Gulf of Maine.

The zones were developed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to offer wind power leases to energy developers.

Amber Hewett director of offshore wind energy at the National Wildlife Foundation said removing the areas is a follow up to the administration’s earlier order to stop all wind power lease sales.

“The change here is that now, when a new administration comes in, those areas won’t be ready and waiting. They have been deleted, and the process will need to start again at the beginning,” Hewett said.

Establishing the areas took years of consultation with fisheries, coastal communities, shipping companies, tribes, environmental groups and other interests.

Through those discussions regulators set aside areas that were the least disruptive, Hewett said.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MASSACHUSETTS: Scallopers push to open northern edge of Georges Bank

July 31, 2025 — Coastal lawmakers and scallopers railed Wednesday against a decision fishing regulators made last year to keep closed the northern edge of Georges Bank, a thriving scallop ground that has been shuttered to commercial fishing since 1994.

“It’s singularly my most frustrating experience, as someone who thinks of the environment every day, but also worries about the economy minute to minute in my own district. It’s stunning to me how long — decades — this has been closed,” said Sen. Mark Montigny of New Bedford.

Montigny chaired a Senate Committee on Post Audit and Oversight hearing on Wednesday which explored the state of commercial sea scallop fisheries and regulations impacting the industry.

New Bedford is the largest port in the United States for sea scallop landings and revenue. Other ports in Massachusetts are important for smaller scallop vessels, including Gloucester, Provincetown, Barnstable and Chatham.

Last year, the New England Fishery Management Council voted against reopening the fishing grounds on the northern edge of George’s Bank, a shallow underwater plateau between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia that is rich in biodiversity and a known spawning ground for Atlantic cod and habitat for scallops. The Light reported that Mayor Jon Mitchell was among those asking the council to reconsider opening it, citing headwinds for the region’s top fishery, including falling prices and fewer days at sea for fishermen.

The council voted not to continue discussions on reopening the area, as they said the high density of scallops there helps spawn other nearby scalloping grounds.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Feeding the Limitless Maine Lobster Roll Boom, Seafloor to Summer Table

July 31, 2025 — “We’ll start with six lobster rolls,” the man in sunglasses and madras shorts said when he reached the front of the line at McLoons Lobster Shack on the tip of Sprucehead Island in Maine.

That was only his opening bid. By the time everyone in his family had weighed in, his lobster roll count was up to nine.

There are other things on the menu at McLoons — chowders and burgers and grilled littleneck clams — but the lobster roll outsells them all by far.

On the Sunday in July I spent at McLoons, in South Thomaston, Me., the place never got truly mobbed. The sky was the color of a fishing sinker and everyone knew an afternoon thunderstorm was on the way. But still they came, the locals and the visitors, almost all of them with the same thing in mind. As Mariah Watkinson, who was working the order window, put it, “There’s usually a lobster roll in every order.”

In 2012, McLoons Lobster Shack’s first season, its manager, Bree Birns, worked almost completely alone and sold about 40 lobster rolls a day. Now, on a busy summer day, the shack will make 500 of them, and she needs 10 full-time workers and 16 part-timers to keep up.

In the intervening 13 years, the demand for lobster rolls has been pushed higher and higher by forces that are often external to Maine. Entrepreneurs in New York City and Los Angeles, taking advantage of deflated lobster prices and the ascent of trucks, stalls and windows devoted to affordable, portable treats, helped build a vast, urban audience for the sandwich. One of these businesses, Luke’s Lobster, now sells about a million lobster rolls a year at its shacks in 12 states, Singapore and Japan.

Read the full article at The New York Times

LOUISIANA: Louisiana representatives want to make crawfish eligible for federal disaster relief funds

July 31, 2025 — U.S. federal lawmakers from the state of Louisiana have introduced a bill that would make wild-caught crawfish eligible for the Department of Commerce’s fishery disaster relief program.

“Louisiana’s crawfish harvesters are a vital part of our state’s economy and heritage. This legislation not only recognizes that legacy, but it also ensures that when future disasters hit, they won’t be left behind. Including wild-caught crawfish under the Magnuson-Stevens Act is a simple yet practical way to give this industry the federal support it deserves,” U.S. Representative Cleo Fields (D-Louisiana) said in a statement.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Conservation groups to sue NOAA Fisheries, US Coast Guard over West Coast vessel strikes on whales

July 31, 2025 — The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Friends of the Earth plan to sue NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Coast Guard over vessel strikes on whales and sea turtles off the coast of California.

According to CBD, neither NOAA Fisheries nor the Coast Guard have properly analyzed how California shipping lane designations could contribute to vessel strikes on whales or sea turtles.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource