Saving Seafood

As Trump pares back ocean protections, California weighs expanding them

May 5, 2025 — Strands of kelp glow in the dim morning light off California’s Channel Islands as fish and sea lions weave through the golden fronds. It’s a scene of remarkable abundance — the result of more than two decades of protection in one of the state’s oldest marine reserves.

But farther out in the Pacific, life in the vast Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument faces a very different future. The Trump administration has moved to reopen 500,000 square miles (about 1.3 million square kilometers) of previously protected waters there to commercial fishing, in a dramatic rollback of federal ocean protections.

California, meanwhile, may be headed in the opposite direction. As it undertakes its first 10-year review of its marine protected area network, state officials, scientists, tribal leaders and environmental advocates are pushing not just to maintain protections but to expand them.

But expansion proposals have sparked debate among fishermen.

Read the full story at KCRA

Gulf fish farming project at risk as judge pulls nationwide permit

May 2, 2025 — A federal judge repealed a nationwide permit for industrial fish farming off the coasts of Florida and California. Instead, the company leading the project will have to turn to individualized permits.

Ocean Era, a Hawaii-based company, proposed a series of industrial fishnets, including three that would be located roughly 45-miles southwest of Sarasota.

Their proposal predates a President Donald Trump 2020 executive order that initially created these “blanket” permits that could be granted by the Army Corp of Engineers.

With U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson revoking the nationwide permit on March 17, Ocean Era would have to turn to individualized permits to create fish farms.

Read the full story at WUWF

‘A ghost town’: How Bodega Bay is adapting to the ailing seafood industry

April 30, 2025 — From the living room window of their waterfront home, Carol and Tony Anello have watched the rise and fall of Bodega Bay. Traffic on Westshore Road flows past in waves, fishing boats pull into the docks and throngs of visitors line up at Spud Point Crab Co., their restaurant next door. Launched more than 20 years ago and known for its chowder and Dungeness crab rolls, the restaurant has helped make the Anellos beacons of the community.

It has also served as a life raft as they left the commercial fishing business.

“I had a premonition that the fishing industry was going down,” said Tony Anello, who fished commercially for salmon, crab and herring for 54 years before selling his boat Anabelle last year. “There are guys dropping out of this industry like flies, and I’m one of them.”

At Bodega Bay and other picturesque seaside villages along the California coast, the fishing economy is gradually sinking.

The latest blows came earlier this month: Commercial harvest of Chinook salmon was banned in California for the third consecutive year because of low populations, and the state’s Dungeness crab fishery has been severely restricted in an effort to protect humpback whales from entanglements. Sportfishing for salmon — a valuable industry and a beloved pastime — also was prohibited for two straight years, and will be severely cut back this year to what may amount to a single weekend in June in Northern California.

Read the full story at CalMatters

Northern California rock crab fishery opens for first time in a decade

April 30, 2025 — California state regulators have decided to open the Northern California commercial rock crab fishery for the first time in a decade after determining the shellfish are now safe to harvest and consume.

The fishery was first closed in 2015 through an emergency rule following the largest outbreak of domoic acid on the West Coast of the United States. However, with a lack of testing done to confirm the quality of the crab meat, the precautionary action remained in place for years after the domoic acid outbreak had ended.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Promising signs for 2026 after California closes commercial salmon season for the year

April 29, 2025 — For the third consecutive year, commercial salmon fishing off the California coast will be prohibited, although there will be a limited opportunity for recreational anglers for the first time since 2022. However, officials say data indicates the industry could see a return in 2026.

Angela Forristall, salmon staff officer with the Pacific Fishery Management Council, said the decision to recommend closing the state’s commercial salmon fisheries for the year followed a challenging debate among the council and stakeholders from both the recreational and commercial fishing industries.

Forristall shared that there were several versions of the recommendation that did open commercial fishing briefly, but the data they’re seeing from populations in the Klamath and Sacramento rivers says it’s potentially too soon for major operations.

Read the full story at KRCR

California reaches settlements with seafood companies over elevated levels of toxic metals

April 29, 2025 — The state of California has reached separate settlements with Clearwater Fine Foods, Seaquest Seafood Corporation, and Jayone Foods over allegations that the companies sold seafood products with elevated levels of toxic heavy metals without warning consumers as required by state law.

“No one should have to question whether their food is safe to eat,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in an announcement. “That’s why California law requires businesses to warn our residents about potential harm from significant exposures to toxic contaminants.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Climate threat casts a shadow over Calif. commercial fisheries

April 24, 2025 — A new climate vulnerability study paints a sobering picture for California’s fishing industry, highlighting serious threats to the state’s most iconic and economically critical species, including Dungeness crab, red abalone, and Pacific herring.

The study, first reported by NBC Bay Area’s Joe Rosato Jr., resulted from a collaboration between federal and state scientists and researchers from UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis. It evaluated 34 aquatic species for their sensitivity to projected climate change impacts, including warming seas, ocean acidification, and shifting upwelling patterns that drive productivity along the coast.

“The most striking thing that we found is among the species that were ranked as the most highly vulnerable happened to also be some of California’s economically valuable and culturally important species,” said Mikeala Provost, assistant professor of fisheries ecology at UC Davis and a co-author of the study.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New study paints gloomy picture of climate change’s impact on commercial fishing

April 22, 2025 — A new study of some of California’s most commercially significant aquatic species paints a grim picture for the future of the state’s fishing industry under the growing threat of climate change.

The study, compiled by a host of researchers including federal and state scientists as well as researchers from UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, looked at 34 aquatic species in an attempt to gauge how each would fare under predicted climate change scenarios.

Among the species studied were Dungeness crab, red abalone, Pacific herring, Pismo clams, pink shrimp, Pacific bonito and California spiny lobster. The group ranked each by their level of vulnerability to changing environmental conditions.

“The most striking thing that we found is that among the species that were ranked as the most highly vulnerable happened to also be some of California’s economically valuable and culturally important species,” said Mikaela Provost, assistant professor of fisheries ecology at UC Davis and co-author of the study.

California’s oceans are highly productive due to seasonal upwelling which keeps water temperatures cool and filled with nutrients. But models of future conditions forecast disruption through rising temperatures, deoxygenation and potential changes in circulation.

Read the full story at NBC Bay Area

CALIFORNIA: ‘Hope dies hard’: Fishing industry reacts to CA salmon season closure

April 21, 2025 — This week, the Pacific Fishery Management Council adopted recommendations for ocean salmon fishing along the West Coast; for an unprecedented third year in a row, the council has recommended closing commercial fishing off the California coast and allowing only limited commercial fishing in Oregon and Washington.

Commercial fishermen and fishing organizations largely affirmed the need to suspend salmon fishing, but noted that three years without a season has been devastating to fishermen and coastal communities that rely on salmon fishing.

Commercial salmon fisherman and Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District Commissioner Aaron Newman said that he had been optimistic after seeing indications that “a lot of healthy jacks” were coming out of the Sacramento region as the Pacific Fishery Management Council planned its recommendation to the National Marine Fisheries Service. But said that analysis of recent trendlines, which take into account the very grim indicator of the past two years, might have scuttled the opportunity for a season.

“Nobody wants to fish on a failing fishery,” Newman said, “but it really looked like it was rebounding.”

Impact on fishermen

“Coastal towns, river communities and thousands of salmon fishery employees depend on the salmon season to generate income and stay afloat — and now, for the third year in a row, they’ve been dealt another devastating impact with an unprecedented closure of the 2025 salmon season,” read a statement issued by U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Raphael). “The last two years of closures have devastated California’s coastal economies — and facing a third consecutive closure marks an unprecedented low point.”

Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations Executive Director Lisa Damrosch lamented a lack of a safety net.

“We don’t have access to the same resources that other food producers have,” she said, noting that commercial fishermen don’t have access to programs like those provided by the USDA. “We have had disasters declared in the past; 2023 and 2024 were both declared disasters, but that’s a very long and onerous process. There still have been no pay-outs to the fishermen from 2023 … There are other programs for agriculture such as subsidies if there is a bad season or subsidies for low prices or low-interest loans or grants; we don’t have any of that to help our fishermen, food producers, when there’s a disaster or an issue.”

Read the full story at the Times-Standard

California’s commercial salmon fishery to remain closed for a third consecutive year

April 17, 2025 — The U.S. state of California’s commercial salmon fishery will remain closed for a third year in a row due mostly to low abundance fall Chinook runs in both the Klamath River and Sacramento River.

“A third year without fishing is a serious blow to California’s commercial salmon fleet,” Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association President George Bradshaw said in a statement. “We were optimistic about a return to salmon fishing for California’s fleet, but the reality is the low abundance and return estimates will not provide the economic impact we need. The risk of fishing this depleted population is simply not worth the reward.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource