Saving Seafood

Nations at southern bluefin tuna meeting stop short of adopting new seabird protections

October 15, 2026 — Seabird protections drew debate at the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT), held Oct. 5-8 in Brussels. The eight-member multilateral body that manages the stock has long struggled to curb seabird deaths caused by longline fishing targeting southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) across several oceans.

This year’s meeting saw a modicum of progress on the issue. Based on recent modeling, the parties agreed on 13 priority seabird species for conservation efforts and designated high-risk areas for them. However, the designations don’t carry any new mandatory protections: Due to the reluctance of some members, the commission stopped short of adopting proposed conservation measures for the high-risk areas, most notably tighter seabird bycatch mitigation requirements.

Oliver Yates, head of the marine program at BirdLife International, a U.K.-based NGO, told Mongabay that the identification of high-risk areas was “a good step forward” but said it was a problem that “they’ve not then adopted any management action to accompany the fishing activity in those spatial areas.”

“[T]hey recognise bycatch of seabirds is a very serious issue but again agreed to do nothing about it,” Yates, who attended the Brussels meeting, added in a text message.

Read the full article at Mongabay

ALASKA: Alaska trawler group leader says pollock fishing isn’t to blame for salmon decline

October 13, 2026 — Alaska’s pollock trawlers are under fire for accidentally catching salmon while salmon returns in the fall, and the head of the group that represents the boats says banning them would not solve the problem.

The boats target pollock, which ends up in fish sticks, fast food fish sandwiches and imitation crab sold worldwide. Their nets also pull in salmon, a practice known as bycatch. Critics say that hurts local fishermen and threatens a way of life for some Alaskan communities. Janet Woods, a local resident, put it this way: “The industry is taking away again part of our life, part of our culture, because it’s all about money.”

Read the full article at News-Nation

The fish behind America’s fish sticks is fueling a fight over trawling in Alaska

October 9, 2026 — The net rose from the heaving Bering Sea swells, packed so tightly with Alaska pollock that their heads squeezed through the webbing.

As the catch spilled onto the deck, other dead marine life came with it: a skate, crabs, jellyfish and, among the most consequential, salmon — the fish at the center of a growing political and cultural fight over industrial trawling in Alaska.

“This is a wild capture fishery so you do run into your nontarget species, and a lot of people have a problem with that,” said Maverick Blake, the boat’s captain. “But this is what it takes to put seafood on the table.”

Blake redirected the boat toward another fishing ground where he hoped to encounter fewer salmon.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

The catch with bycatch: Saving sharks goes beyond no-fishing policies

October 8, 2026 — The go-to solution for protecting most marine wildlife is to create designated areas where fishing is strictly prohibited. But when it comes to wide-ranging marine animals — such as fast-moving sharks in the tropical waters of the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador — there’s a catch.

Bycatch, that is.

The long fishing lines of tuna boats can accidentally drift into the marine reserves, and they often catch a lot more than tuna — mainly, sharks, turtles and sea lions. This unintentional capture is called bycatch.

“People think that by setting a reserve, that’s getting to an outcome, but it’s not,” said Leah Gerber, professor in Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences and founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes. “We really wanted to highlight that. What are the implications of this and what really would work?”

Gerber led a new study she co-authored that reveals how data, local knowledge and community collaboration can help shape more effective solutions.

The study compared the efficacy of no-fishing conservation areas with bycatch reduction in the Galápagos Marine Reserve. The researchers ultimately found that reducing bycatch was likely to have a higher conservation impact on sharks.

Read the full article at Arizona State University News

ALASKA: Pollock industry, Senate race and culture collide in a fight over fish

October 7, 2026 — Evon Waska’s fish camp was too quiet this summer.

“Well, this is my smokehouse,” he said, opening the door to the plywood structure at the water’s edge in Bethel, where he says his parents settled when they gave up their nomadic ways.

It’s next to empty salmon-drying racks and fish-cutting tables that have seen too few fish for many years running.

A few smoked king fillets still hang. Waska caught about 40 at the start of summer. That was a relief. Some years subsistence fishermen on the Kuskokwim River weren’t allowed to harvest any, and it’s worse on the Yukon. But Waska said he got only half of what his household needs.

His fish racks should be filled with silver salmon now. But the silver return was too weak to fish. So instead of getting more salmon in late August, his family was already dipping into what they put up for winter.

Waska, like a lot of people along the Kuskokwim River, say the problem is in the Bering Sea, with the trawl fleet. The trawlers are after pollock, but they are allowed to waste thousands of king and chum salmon, some bound for Western Alaska rivers like the Kuskokwim.

“They don’t close the trawlers,” Waska said. “They close me and my people first.”

Waska is up against a giant. Trawlers in the federal waters of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska catch nearly 3 billion pounds of Alaska pollock, the nation’s largest fishery by volume. They can tow nets as wide at the mouth as a football field and a quarter-mile in length.

It’s not just subsistence fishermen who are upset about bycatch — the other species those nets scoop up. Sport, charter and commercial fishermen are also boiling mad and demanding change. In Alaska’s tight U.S. Senate race, bycatch has become a flashpoint, and the race may turn on which candidate — Sen. Dan Sullivan or challenger Mary Peltola — is perceived as the most willing and able to rein in the the trawlers.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Pollock trawlers feel cast as the villains of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race

October 7, 2026 — Cole Hockema, operator of the 104-foot Pacific Storm, is disappointed that pollock fishermen like him have no champions in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.

“It’s just such easy, low-hanging fruit, essentially, to get votes, is to be against trawling,” he said.

The pollock industry, America’s largest fishery, has been hit with a tsunami of popular discontent in Alaska this election season, with loud demands for a ban on trawling. The problem is bycatch — the thousands of salmon and metric tons of halibut the pollock fleet catches by accident. Anger about these wasted fish has sparked a movement that’s flexing its political muscle, and it could be decisive in Alaska’s tight Senate election.

Amid the barrage, the pollock industry — the source of the fish in fish sticks and McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish — is feeling misunderstood.

Trawl opponents focus their harshest critiques on the biggest players in the pollock fleet — the massive catcher-processors, floating factories that are homeported mainly in Seattle, and the substantial number of trawlers owned by out-of-state corporations.

Read the full article at Alask Public Media

ALASKA: Peltola, Sullivan take different approaches to reducing bycatch

September 29, 2026 — Bycatch has emerged as a defining fisheries issue in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, but the legislative records of former Rep. Mary Peltola and Sen. Dan Sullivan show different approaches to reducing incidental harvests and addressing trawling’s impacts.

Peltola, who is challenging Sullivan for his Senate seat, introduced the Bycatch Reduction and Mitigation Act in 0224 while serving in the U.S. House. Sullivan introduced his Bycatch Reduction Act this year, which advanced through the Senate Commerce Committee on Sept. 16.

According to the Alaska Beacon, the two proposals share some common ground, particularly federal support for technology to reduce bycatch. But there are notable differences in how that support would be distributed and how each proposal approaches fisheries management.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NOAA opens $4.6M for bycatch reduction projects

August 28, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries is making approximately $4.6 million available for projects aimed at reducing bycatch through improved fishing practices and innovative gear technology.

The agency announced its 2026 funding opportunity through the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program, inviting non-federal researchers to submit proposals for collaborative projects that address bycatch challenges facing U.S. fisheries.

A major emphasis of this year’s funding opportunity is industry involvement. NOAA Fisheries said it is looking for proposals that include proactive and meaningful engagement with the fishing industry in identifying, designing, or implementing projects.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Lobsters and acidic seas: can shellfish help neutralise one of the greatest threats to the ocean?

August 21, 2026 — For many in the US region of New England, the lobster roll is synonymous with summertime. Loaded into a toasted bun, chunks of the sweet meat are served hot and soaked in butter, or chilled and slathered in mayonnaise with celery and herbs.

The only thing more debated than the recipe is the price: the once-humble roll now routinely fetches $30 (£22), or even $50, in a sign of the changing times – and seas.

A third-generation lobster fisherman, Scott Lord spends his days hauling traps on the Gulf of Maine, which is warming faster than 99% of the world’s oceans. “Whether you agree with who says why it’s happening, it is happening,” he says.

Bycatch that was once plentiful, such as sea urchins, sand dollars or starfish, are increasingly rare. And, most concerning, Lord has noticed the number of inshore lobsters dropping dramatically over the past 15 years, pushing fishers farther and farther offshore.

Motivated to find a remedy, Lord joined a regional shellfish committee. “Why are there not clams where there used to be clams? Why are they not coming back, no matter what we do?” he asks.

Hundreds of miles to the south in Massachusetts, on a sandy crook of land that spins out to form Cape Cod, Adam Subhas, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is trying to find the answers.

Read the full article at The Guardian

ALASKA: Fish fights take center stage in Alaska Senate race

August 20, 2026 — The plight of the state’s fisheries, some of the most productive in the world, has become a flashpoint in Alaska’s Senate race and arisen as a potential weakness for two-term incumbent Dan Sullivan.

Sullivan faces a tough reelection bid against former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who has centered her campaign around “Fish, Family, Freedom.” She’s trying to harness anger at out-of-state commercial fishing to win her way back to Congress.

Alaska hosts some of the largest commercial pollock fisheries in the world as well as major salmon populations — buttressing a seafood industry that supports more than 15,000 Alaskan jobs with around $5 billion in value. Many Alaska Natives harvest fish from the state’s mighty rivers and rely on the catch during winter.

Read the full article at E&E News