Saving Seafood

NOAA eyes potential changes to Alaska sea lion protections as Trump urges boosted seafood harvests

July 6, 2026 — Federal regulators plan to reevaluate fishing closure boundaries established to protect endangered Steller sea lions in Alaska, part of a national Trump administration push to cut regulation of U.S. commercial seafood harvests.

The Steller sea lion protections are among a series of rules that the administration is seeking to relax or change to carry out a mandate from President Donald Trump to increase catches, reduce regulation and ensure that the nation is “the world’s dominant seafood leader.”

The recommended changes were released on Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries service and are in response to Trump’s 2025 executive order titled “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness.” They could affect oceans from New England and the Caribbean to the tropical Pacific and the Bering Sea.

Several months of public consultations resulted in a list of recommendations that “we believe will reduce burdens on domestic fishing, increase production, stabilize markets, improve access, and enhance economic profitability,” NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler said in a statement.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

Big Alaska salmon harvest about 5 percent more than forecast

September 12, 2017 — Alaska’s salmon season is nearly a wrap but fall remains as one of the fishing industry’s busiest times of the year.

For salmon, the catch of 213 million has surpassed the forecast by 9 million fish. High points include a statewide sockeye catch topping 50 million for the 10th time in history (37 million from Bristol Bay), and one of the best chum harvests ever at more than 22 million fish.

Total catches and values by region will be released by state fishery managers in November.

Hundreds of boats are now fishing for cod following Sept. 1 openers in Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet, Kodiak and throughout the Bering Sea.

Pollock fishing reopened to Gulf of Alaska trawlers Aug. 25. More than 3 billion pounds of pollock will be landed this year in Alaska’s Gulf and Bering Sea fisheries. Fishing also is ongoing for Atka mackerel, perch, various flounders, rockfish and more.

Read the full story at Alaska Dispatch News

ALASKA: Underwater camera keeps an eye on Atka mackerel

July 27, 2017 — Counting Atka mackerel became really important, according to National Marine Fisheries Service Biologist Suzanne McDermott, when Steller sea lions were declared endangered in 1997.

“We learned that Atka mackerel are their main food item,” McDermott said. “That’s when we really started looking at them in relation to Steller sea lions.”

McDermott knows the mammals face competition for their food — commercial fishermen. In 2016, Alaska fishermen caught and kept 55,000 metric tons of Atka mackerel and discarded another 532 tons as bycatch.

This summer, McDermott and her colleague David Bryan traversed the Aleutian Chain to answer a big question: are there enough fish to support both endangered Steller sea lions and commercial fishermen?

Read and listen to the full story at Alaska Public Media