Saving Seafood

MARYLAND: Maryland crab processors are rapidly nearing point of no return, industry rep warns

August 19, 2025 — Maryland’s crab fishery has faced labor shortages and heavy competition from cheap imports for several years, but Bill Sieling, the executive vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, is warning that the issues are now reaching a breaking point.

The Mid-Atlantic U.S. state’s crab fishery, like many seafood subsectors throughout the country, relies on seasonal workers to fill temporary positions. Many of those seasonal workers are from foreign countries, and to fill those positions the federal government allocates H-2B visas to employers through a lottery – meaning businesses have no guarantee on how many temporary workers they’re able to bring in every year.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

“We are going to be hitting Covid-level prices soon” – US crab importer warns of tariff-driven cost increases

July 15, 2025 — Though container prices between Asia and the U.S. are down slightly from the highs importers saw in May and June, continued economic uncertainty is likely to drive price increases among some seafood species, Supreme Crab CEO Troy Turkin told SeafoodSource.

“It’s a new world,” Turkin said, describing fast-moving policy evolutions he’s seeing that are affecting his business, which specializes in luxury imports like blue and red swimming crabs and frozen tuna, among other products.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFRONIA: With whales present, California wildlife department stops crab fishing to reduce entanglement threat

April 8, 2024 — With humpback whales heading back to their feeding grounds off coastal California and gray whales migrating north to Alaska, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it will close the commercial and recreational Dungeness crab fisheries in southern and central fishing zones including Monterey Bay to reduce the risk of entanglements.

Recently spotters with the department counted as many as 34 humpbacks in one day, said Ryan Bartling, a senior environmental scientists at the wildlife agency. The increased presence of whales observed by planes overhead and vessels on the water triggered the decision to close the fishing season on April 8.

“As it becomes summer, it is not uncommon to see dozens of groups of humpbacks foraging between Monterey Bay and the Gulf of the Farallones (near San Francisco),” he said.

With the closure, the wildlife department is also expected to examine new draft regulations for the fishery, which could set even stricter requirements for when crab fishermen can start fishing with lines and pots and when the season must end.

In former years, before a settlement that led to current regulations limiting the season when the giant mammals are spotted in larger numbers, Dungeness crab fishermen typically started in mid-November and pulled their traps in June. This season, they weren’t allowed to start until late January; fishermen have since pulled in 13 million pounds of crabs worth about $43.4 million.

Whales – and other animals of the sea – can get wrapped up in the lines that connect the pots catching crabs on the ocean floor to buoys on the water’s surface – in 2023, 27 whales were caught in fishing gear off the West Coast, five of which were wrapped up in California Dungeness crab gear, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records.

Read the full article at Santa Cruz Sentinel 

Favorable lobster, crab prices land them bigger share of US restaurant menus

July 12, 2023 — Many U.S. restaurants are taking advantage of recently declining crab and plateauing lobster prices by featuring them on summer menus.

Wholesale crab prices have dropped in recent months, encouraging retail and restaurant buyers to promote it this summer, which in turn has led to higher sales. Frozen crab sales spiked 41.9 percent in May 2023 compared to the same month last year, and fresh crab sales jumped 15.4 percent, according to research firm Circana.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource