Saving Seafood

State and Local

MASSACHUSETTS: Mayor of New Bedford urges NOAA to approve proposal allowing scallop permit stacking

October 20, 2025 — The mayor of the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A., is calling on NOAA Fisheries to allow full-time scallop vessels to stack two permits on one vessel.

Mayor Jon Mitchell, in a letter sent to NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler, called on the agency to allow for permit stacking in order to help protect the industry. Mitchell’s letter said he has reconsidered his position on the matter, as the scallop fishery continues to face limited days at sea.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFORNIA: Successes from Klamath dam removal celebrated

October 20, 2025 — This month marks the one-year anniversary of dam removal along the lower Klamath River, the culmination of what has been described as “the world’s biggest dam removal project.”

During a virtual news conference on Oct. 9, environmental groups, tribal organizations and state and local agencies celebrated the milestone. Presenters described dramatic successes, as well as potential setbacks, in detail, outlining efforts along one of the most comprehensive environmental restoration efforts in history. ”

Just being out there in the community and talking to tribal fishermen, tribal members, sport fishermen … (and) the community at large, there’s this feeling that the river feels different,” Barry McCovey Jr., director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department, told attendees. “It feels stronger. It feels cleaner. Everyone who’s been out there has had a bit of a different experience this summer and fall, and that experience has been a positive one. So, we’re making progress. I would note the Klamath River is still in that process of healing from those dams, and the scars are still fresh, but the progress that we’ve made in just one year is pretty incredible, and … it provides us with a lot of hope for the future.”

Read the full article at the Sacramento Bee 

LOUISIANA: Local fishers challenge Louisiana natural gas project

October 17, 2025 — Commercial fishers from the U.S. state of Louisiana have challenged the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of a new natural gas project in their state, work on which resulted in dredged sediment spilling out into the surrounding marsh and burying crab taps and oyster beds.

“I’ve fished these waters most of my life. Since the first terminal came online, our catch has fallen off a cliff,” Cameron Parish, Louisiana-based commercial fisher Anthony Theriot said in a release. “More tankers mean more wake, more delays in the channel, and more mud stirred up where shrimp and oysters should be. The quality of our lives, air, and waters are declining, and FERC just approved this massive, incredibly harmful project on top of everything else. We’re fighting for a future where our kids can still work these waters.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

RHODE ISLAND: URI part of finalist team selected by National Science Foundation in Regional Innovation Engines competition

October 17, 2025 — Aquaculture/Fisheries Professor Marta Gomez-Chiarri is leading efforts at the University of Rhode Island to help position New England as a national leader in the seafood industry, hoping to secure final funding through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines program. URI joins a consortium of regional partners, collectively known as NSPIRE, selected as finalists in the national competition.

Gomez-Chiarri, in URI’s Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences Department, is the lead faculty member on the finalist team in a competitive process which began with almost 300 letters of intent and is now down to just 15 finalists. She’ll work closely with principal investigator Jake Kritzer at Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS) and a large team of senior investigators from several partner institutions.

“Hearing we were picked as finalists was extremely rewarding,” she says. “It validated all the hard work that our team put into this proposal.”

“I commend URI for being selected to move forward in NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines program. Rhode Island is a leader when it comes to our sustainable aquaculture and seafood harvesters, and this funding will help Ocean State researchers better support our local fishermen and shellfishermen and support resilient growth of this industry across our region,” says U.S. Senator Jack Reed, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee who has delivered millions of dollars in federal investments for Rhode Island’s aquaculture and seafood industries and research.

Read the full article at The University of Rhode Island

CALIFORNIA: California cuts production at salmon hatchery in half as federal funding dwindles

October 16, 2025 — The U.S. state of California has decided to cut production at one of its main salmon hatcheries in response to a drop in federal funding for the facility.

The Nimbus Hatchery on the American River was established to offset the loss of salmon habitat caused by the building of the Folsom and Nimbus dams. The hatchery is technically owned by the federal Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), which provides funding to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to operate the facility. However, the bureau is slashing its financial support, providing just USD 2.5 million (EUR 2.1 million) for the current fiscal year, according to the Daily Kos.

“This is below the USD 3.16 million [EUR 2.7 million] required to maintain historical production levels and falls short of meeting federal mitigation obligations under the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act. Exacerbating the problem, budget reductions are compounded by increasing production costs, tariffs, and inflation. To give an idea of cost, fish food alone can exceed USD 500,000 [EUR 428,000] annually at standard production levels,” CDFW Spokesperson Steve Gonzalez told the publication.

In order to adapt to the lost funding, operators plan to cut fall-run Chinook salmon smolt production by 50 percent this year to 2.25 million fish. Steelhead trout production will also be halved, with the facility producing just 215,000 fish.

With commercial salmon fishing in California closed for the third straight year, the state has relied on hatchery operations – as well as habitat restoration – to help the struggling stocks recover. According to Gonzalez, Nimbus provides between 7 percent and 30 percent of the regular ocean salmon harvest.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFORNIA: California Governor Newsom signs bill phasing out gillnet fishing in state waters

October 15, 2025 — Gavin Newsom, the governor of the U.S. state of California, has signed a bill into law that ends the use of gillnets in state waters.

Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1056 into law on 13 October, phasing out the use of drift gillnets in California’s waters. The bill – sponsored by NGOs Oceana and the Resource Renewal Institute – limits the ability of remaining fishers with gillnet permits to transfer them, phasing out the fishery as they retire.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALABAMA: Shrimp Festival Makes History: Imported Shrimp Vendors Stopped on the Spot

October 14, 2025 — The following was released by OSAA and SeaD Consulting:

Hi there,

For the first time in its 52-year history, the National Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores enforced shrimp authenticity in real time — with DNA testing by SeaD Consulting funded by the Organized Seafood Association of Alabama (OSAA).
Using SeaD’s RIGHTTest™ technology, shrimp served at the festival was verified on-site in under two hours, allowing Chief Shrimp Investigator (CSI) Chandra Wright and her team to identify vendors selling imported shrimp. Those vendors were immediately fined and prohibited from selling shrimp until they could show proof and retesting was conducted on their dishes.
“This was a defining moment for Alabama’s seafood industry,” said Ernie Anderson, President of OSAA. “If you’re promoting wild-caught Gulf shrimp, that’s exactly what you should be serving. With this technology, we can finally ensure that promise is kept.”
Wright added, “The RIGHTTest changed everything. For the first time, we could protect consumers and stand up for our shrimpers — right there, in real time.”
The partnership between OSAA, SeaD Consulting, and the National Shrimp Festival has set a new national benchmark for authenticity and accountability — ensuring that local celebrations truly support local industries.

NEW YORK: No ship? New York offshore wind project faces yet another hurdle

October 13, 2025 —  The first wind farm slated to plug into New York City’s grid has already endured one political catastrophe this year. Now, a logistical crisis looms on the horizon.

Equinor’s Empire Wind is a 810-megawatt project being built about 20 miles off the shore of Long Island, promising enough energy to power 500,000 homes once completed in 2027. The Trump administration halted construction in April, but allowed it to resume in May. The latest challenge came on Thursday with the unexpected cancellation of a contract for the massive new wind-turbine installation vessel that Equinor had been planning to use on the project next year.

Two shipbuilding companies broke out into a public skirmish — one unexpectedly cancelling a contract and the other threatening legal action — over the construction of the specialized ship. The fate of the vessel, which is already more than 98% complete and floating in Singapore’s waters, is now uncertain.

The cancelled $475 million agreement leaves Equinor scrambling to figure out how to maintain progress and bring Empire Wind online on schedule.

Read the full article at Canary Media

VIRGINIA: Bay scallop population bounces back after extinction threat in the Eastern Shore

October 13, 2025 — Bay scallops were once “locally extinct” in the Eastern Shore — however, restoration work from local research groups has resulted in the population “multiplying exponentially.”

William & Mary’s Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences along with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Eastern Shore Laboratory (VIMS ESL) led the initiative to bring back the bay scallop population.

Read the full article at WTKR