Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Without completed 2025 reports, federal fishery managers use last year’s data to set Alaska harvests

December 12, 2025 — Lacking the usual amount of data to guide them, federal fishery managers relied on last year’s reports to set the coming year’s harvests for the nation’s top-volume commercial fish species: Alaska pollock.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the panel that sets harvest levels and other rules for fisheries conducted in federal waters off Alaska, voted on Sunday to keep 2026 pollock catch limits in the Bering Sea at about the same level as this year’s limits while paring back the pollock catch limit for the Gulf of Alaska.

Pollock, one of key species in the North Pacific Ocean, is widely sold as fish patties and fillets, fish sticks, imitation crab meat and other products.

The council, which sets the coming year’s groundfish harvest limits each December, typically bases those decisions on detailed annual Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation reports, known as SAFE reports. But this year, the prolonged federal government shutdown prevented National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists and their partners from completing SAFE reports for the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.

Instead, the council used the 2024 SAFE reports, supplemented with some newer data about harvests completed this year and some preliminary information about ecosystem conditions. The newer information did not reveal any conservation concerns that would justify harvest reductions, the council determined.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

Federal shutdown disrupts quota-setting for pollock

December 12, 2025 — Last week, members of the body that oversees federal fisheries off Alaska’s coast recommended keeping next year’s catch limits for the sprawling Bering Sea pollock fishery about the same as this year.

Managing the nation’s largest commercial fishery is never simple, but North Pacific Fishery Management Council member Anne Vanderhoeven said during the meeting that this year had unprecedented challenges.

“Because of the lapse in federal funding and the subsequent government shutdown, updated stock assessments are not available,” she said.

Without those assessments, the council had to rely on older data and partial updates.

Read the full article at KUCB

ALASKA: Alaska Natives’ fight for fishing rights finds an ally in Trump team

December 12, 2025 — The Trump administration is now siding with Alaskan Natives and opposing the state in a long-running fight about subsistence fishing rights and the high-stakes meaning of the phrase “public lands.”

In a legal brief filed Tuesday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to disregard the state of Alaska’s appeal of a lower court’s decision upholding an expansive view of the Native fishing claims. Sauer’s brief cited the power of precedent, noting previous rejections of efforts to limit the subsistence fishing rights granted under a 1980 federal law.

“Given the length of time this interpretation has been in effect, and Congress’s continuing authority to modify the current framework if it chooses to do so, there is no sound reason for the court to revisit the status quo at this juncture,” the solicitor general’s brief stated.

Read the full article at E&E News

NPFMC cuts Gulf of Alaska pollock quotas by 25 percent, keeps Bering Sea quotas mostly steady

December 10, 2025 — The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) has slashed pollock quotas in the Gulf of Alaska by more than 25 percent for 2026 but has kept much larger quotas in the Bering Sea nearly the same.

During a council meeting held 4 to 9 December in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.A., the body recommended cutting pollock quota from this year’s total allowable catch (TAC) of 186,245 metric tons (MT) to 139,498 MT. However, quotas in the Bering Sea will stay nearly the same as 2025’s TAC at just under 1.4 million MT.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US Senate passes bill renewing ocean cleanup legislation

December 10, 2025 — The U.S. Senate has passed legislation reauthorizing marine debris cleanup programs originally passed in the 2020 Save Our Seas 2.0 Act for another five years.

“Alaska has more coastline than the Lower 48 states combined, which means our state feels a disproportionate impact of the global marine debris crisis,” U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan said in a release. “These programs, last authorized by our Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, have helped our coastal communities clean up the debris that washes up onto our vast shoreline, provided access to clean drinking water, and supported the health and livelihoods of Alaskans, including our fishermen.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Federal fisheries managers hold Bering Sea pollock catch steady

December 9, 2025 — Federal fishery managers are keeping the Bering sea pollock quota flat next year, even as they move to sharply reduce catch limits in the Gulf of Alaska.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council on Sunday recommended the 2026 Bering Sea pollock total allowable catch at 1.375 million metric tons, the same as this year. The catch limit for the Aleutian Islands is another 19,000 metric tons.

Read the full article at KUCB

ALASKA: Alaska seeks more federal financial relief for Bering Sea snow crab fishery

December 9, 2025 — The U.S. state of Alaska has asked the U.S. Department of Commerce to issue a fishery disaster determination for the 2024/2025 Bering Sea snow crab season, which despite reopening after two years of closure, remains well below recent averages in terms of both harvest and revenue.

“The snow crab fishery has historically been the most productive crab fishery in the Bering Sea and supported one of the most valuable commercial fisheries in the Arctic,” Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said in his letter, which noted that the fishery recorded gross revenue peaking at USD 219 million (EUR 188 million) in the 2020/2021 season.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Pacific halibut catches declined this year

December 9, 2025 — The Pacific halibut fishery ended on Dec. 7, and by all accounts, things remained on a stagnant trend. Stakeholders are dealing with the fallout from the lowest Pacific halibut spawning biomass in 40 years, and harvesters widely reported catches of fewer and smaller fish.

The annual survey conducted since 1963 by the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) revealed little change in the halibut stock that stretches from Alaska’s northern Bering Sea, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon to California’s Monterey Bay.

By early December, coast-wide commercial landings of halibut totaled 16.7 million pounds, down 16 percent from the same time last year and reflecting just  80 percent of the allowable catch limit in 2025.

According to a report by the IPHC at its interim meeting on December 2, total halibut takes (called mortalities) from all sectors – commercial, sport, personal use, and subsistence – were 28.8 million pounds, down 12% from last year, and marking the lowest removals in 100 years.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Stories from the margins of the industry

December 9, 2025 — Two books by women in the fishing industry have landed on my desk this year. While many women work on fishing boats—these days more than ever—historically, women have worked on the land side of fishing; they build the gear, process the catch, and take care of their families. These books come from those worlds.

In 2018, Kate Mitchell, the founder of NOMAR, a maker of brailer bags for the Alaska salmon fishery, published The Bag Lady at the End of the Road, a book that tells her and her family’s story. Like many Alaska stories, Mitchell’s is one of tenacity, luck, and finding creative ways to survive. Her book begins on the plains of South Dakota, and lessons learned from her independent-spirited mother, Ruby, who said, when pushed to become a teacher, “she would get a tin bill and pick shit with the chickens before she would ever become a teacher.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Snow Crab Collapse Linked to Energetic Limitations During a Marine Heatwave

December 8, 2025 — A new study addresses one of the largest mass mortality events in recent marine history—the abrupt collapse of the snow crab population in the eastern Bering Sea. The research team was led by NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center fishery biologist Erin Fedewa. They set out to identify potential factors driving the increased mortality, population collapse, and recovery potential of Bering Sea snow crab.

Erin and her team measured snow crab energy reserves during and after the 2018–2019 marine heatwave and population collapse. This approach is the first of its kind for Bering Sea crab stocks. Findings show that warmer conditions and high population density led to energetic limitations—likely causing the snow crab population collapse.

A New, Rapid Energetic Condition Metric for Fisheries Management

Poor energetic condition is a state in which crabs have low energy reserves. This can increase starvation and mortality risk, emphasizing the importance of monitoring the energetic condition of individuals in marine populations. Techniques used to monitor energy reserves in fish often rely on data collected rapidly during annual scientific surveys, such as the weight-at-size of individual fish.

However, snow crabs have exoskeletons; they molt as juveniles, which uses a lot of their energy stores. They require more sensitive techniques to detect energy reserves beyond simple length-weight measurements. These techniques are often time-intensive and costly. Scientists have not routinely monitored energetic condition in Bering Sea crab populations to date.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries