Saving Seafood

Conservation group sues over Alaska pollock trawling claiming practice harms fur seal population

April 10, 2026 — Conservation NGO the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has filed a lawsuit challenging NOAA Fisheries’ regulations for pollock trawling in Alaska, arguing that the government has not done enough to protect northern fur seals.

The lawsuit centers on the seal population around St. Paul Island, Alaska, U.S.A., where many mothers raise their pups. According to CBD, those seals rely on the same pollock that are harvested by the commercial trawling sector, depriving them of a key source of prey and putting that population under unnecessary stress. The seal population on the island has shrunk 70 percent over the last 50 plus years, and CBD claims that the pollock trawl fishery is one of the primary culprits.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Center for Biological Diversity to sue NOAA Fisheries over horseshoe crab decision

March 25, 2026 —  The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has notified NOAA Fisheries of its intent to sue the agency after it denied a petition to list horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“Horseshoe crabs watched the dinosaurs come and go, but now they face their greatest threat yet: us,” CBD Senior Attorney Danny Waltz said in a release. “Fortunately, we also have the power to save horseshoe crabs by protecting them under the Endangered Species Act.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Petition urges more protections for whales in Dungeness crab fisheries

December 18, 2025 — Four conservation groups have petitioned the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to strengthen risk reduction measures to prevent whale entanglement during the state’s Dungeness crab fishery.

The petition filed on Dec. 11 in Salem, Oregon, also calls for creating a pathway for authorization of safer pop-up fishing gear and establishing a process for timely public reporting of marine mammal or sea turtle entanglements in Oregon Commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear.

Four humpback whales were confirmed to have been entangled in 2025 in Oregon commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear, including one that beached and had to be euthanized.

Petition signers included the Center for Biological Diversity, Oceana, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the American Cetacean Society. 

“If state officials don’t move to adopt whale-safe fishing gear, like pop-up buoys for Dungeness crab pots, endangered whales will continue to suffer and die preventable deaths,” said Ben Grundy, an oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Feds deny petition to list two Oregon Chinook salmon populations as endangered

December 10, 2025 — A group of environmental nonprofits filed a petition in 2022 to protect the spring-run Chinook along the Oregon Coast and part of Northern California.

Jeff Miller from the Center for Biological Diversity said spring-run Chinook are more threatened by habitat changes than fish that return in the fall.

“Spring-run are blocked in their migration to where they ideally want to go,” Miller said. “A lot of their former spawning habitat is blocked above major dams.”

Spring-run Chinook return from the ocean much earlier than the fall-run salmon and will stay in deep-water pools until the fall, when they head further upstream to spawn. That means spring-run Chinook often spawn further upstream than fall-run.

Read the full article at KLCC

Chinook Salmon denied consideration to be labeled endangered species

December 9, 2025 –For the second time in seven years the National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have determined that Chinook Salmon do not meet the requirements to warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act.

A petition set forth by the Center for Biological Diversity claims that the spring-run Chinook Salmon is threatened, and endangered.

“It’s bad news for anyone who loves salmon, or depends on salmon including the orcas, including tribes, salmon fishers both recreational and commercial, and the public interest suffers,” said Jeff Miller, a Senior Conservation Advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read the full article at KVAL

Conservation groups to sue NOAA Fisheries, US Coast Guard over West Coast vessel strikes on whales

July 31, 2025 — The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Friends of the Earth plan to sue NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Coast Guard over vessel strikes on whales and sea turtles off the coast of California.

According to CBD, neither NOAA Fisheries nor the Coast Guard have properly analyzed how California shipping lane designations could contribute to vessel strikes on whales or sea turtles.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US government signs agreement ending lawsuit over marine mammal protections in foreign fisheries

January 21, 2025 — The U.S. government has signed a legal agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), and the Animal Welfare Institute demanding regulators block imports from foreign fisheries that are not adequately protecting marine mammals.

“I’m relieved other nations will finally be pressured to prevent whales and dolphins from getting caught in fishing nets. Entanglement is a huge threat to these animals’ survival,” CBD International Program Director Sarah Uhlemann said in a statement. “The United States has the power to use its enormous seafood market to help the world’s oceans, and it’s about time we started.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA Fisheries agrees to make decision on tope shark protections by August 2025

December 9, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries has agreed to determine whether tope sharks deserve protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by August 2025 following a lawsuit from conservation legal groups Defend Them All and the Center for Biological Diversity.

“We’re optimistic that long-overdue protections for the tope shark are finally on the horizon,” Defend Them All attorney Lindsey Zehel said in a statement. “As compounding threats to the species continue to intensify, immediate action is necessary to halt the tope shark’s decline and preserve the integrity of our coastal ecosystems.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Conservation groups sue NOAA over tope shark protections

July 11, 2024 — Conservations groups have sued NOAA Fisheries, claiming that the agency has failed to meet the legal deadline for determining whether tope sharks should be protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Defend Them All Foundation first filed a petition to have tope sharks ESA-listed in February 2022. NOAA Fisheries responded with a 90-day preliminary finding acknowledging that the sharks may warrant protections in April of that year, triggering a full investigation due February 2023. The agency has still not issued a determination.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Federal court rules fisheries officials didn’t do enough to protect right whales from lobster gear

July 8, 2022 — A federal court on Friday ruled in favor of environmental groups that had filed a lawsuit against the government and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association claiming federal fisheries officials had failed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from potentially fatal entanglements in lobster fishing gear, records show.

A judge ruled that NOAA Fisheries had violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act when it issued a May 2021 biological opinion and a September 2021 final rule because officials had not done enough to reduce the lobster fishery’s threat to right whales, the plaintiffs in the suit said in a statement.

The lawsuit was filed in 2018 by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Conservation Law Foundation, and Defenders of Wildlife.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe