Saving Seafood

Where have all the old, female black rockfish gone?

August 6, 2026 — The Marine Fisheries Research Project team from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife headed out to sea on Aug. 1.

Their destination: Cobb Seamount, about 300 miles west of the Washington coast.

Their goal: to find older female black, canary, or yellowtail rockfish.

Since the early 1990s, fisheries scientists on the West Coast have noticed a peculiar trend in black, yellowtail, and canary rockfish populations: the older females get, the fewer of them there are.

Marine Fisheries Research Project leader Leif Rasmuson and other members of his team boarded Oregon State University’s research vessel Pacific Storm for a 47-hour steam to the research site. The trip is part of OSU’s Oceangoing Research Vessel Program.

It took the crew two days to reach Cobb Seamount, where they’ll spend about 11 days searching for older female rockfish. Additionally, they’ll also collect genetic samples, attach satellite tags to fish, and document other marine life, including sunflower sea stars.

Read the full article at KLCC

Search for old female rockfish sends Oregon scientists to inactive underwater volcano

August 3, 2026 — Oregon scientists have headed to an inactive underwater volcano in search of rare fish.

The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife’s Marine Fisheries Research Team left Newport on Saturday to begin their journey 322 miles left of the state’s north coast, the agency recently announced. Officials said Cobb Seamount is their destination, where they hope to locate old female rockfish.

ODFW reported the team is specifically looking for black, canary and yellowtail fish.

Those particular species are mostly comprised of male fish as they age, according to the department. Researchers also noted older fish have only been found in commercial or recreational fisheries on few occasions.

Read the full article at KOIN

Marine heatwaves impact maturation of black rockfish

July 24, 2025 — A newly released study by Oregon State University and NOAA Fisheries researchers shows that marine heat waves in increasing frequency are having an impact on the growth and maturation of black rockfish in Oregon and Washington.

“We do know that the occurrence of marine heatwaves is more often and more intense,” said Claire Rosemond, now a fisheries biologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Newport, Ore. “There are some monitored ocean indicators that can help us understand if the coming year would be warmer or cooler, but it is harder to predict how hot or how cold.”

Results of her dissertation while at OSU with fisheries biologist Melissa Head, also of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, and Scott Heppell, a professor at OSU ‘s Department of Fisheries Wildlife and Conservation Sciences, were published on June 3 in the journal Ecological Applications.

The study investigated the impact of intense and less intense marine heatwaves on black rockfish reproduction and growth along the Pacific Coast between 2014 and 2021.
They found that while black rockfish exhibited elevated growth during intense marine heatwaves, their maturation was delayed. In fact, during intense marine heatwaves, maturation was postponed, reproductive success was lower by one third, and parasite prevalence in ovaries was nominally high.

Younger females were large at age during intense marine heatwaves, and throughout the last decade, growth rate coefficients were higher than what is typically expected for slower-growing fishes like rockfishes.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman