Saving Seafood

MAINE: How fisheries in Maine are restructuring amid warming waters

January 6, 2026 — Fisheries in Maine are a vital resource in our state. They provide thousands with jobs and millions with sustainable protein. But now warming waters are making it more difficult to manage the ins and outs of the industry.

The Gulf of Maine continues to be the fastest-warming body of water—2024 went down as the 12th warmest year on record. Changes like this are affecting marine life and causing local fisheries to conduct research and restructure in order to remain successful.

That is the focus of Jonathan Labaree, the Chief Community Officer at GMRI. Understanding how the industry is adapting reveals the complex challenge facing Maine’s fishing communities. “When we think about fisheries, we think about it in sort of four pieces,” Labaree explains. “The first piece is the resource itself. So the fish themselves and the people who harvest the fish, the place in which that’s happening, and then the kind of gear, the resources that they use to harvest those fish.”

Climate change is having different kinds of impacts on fisheries. The major one is that species are shifting their location. Fish are very responsive to temperature, so they have a tendency to move to find optimal temperature ranges for themselves.

These shifting species create a new dynamic around predator and prey relationships, fundamentally altering the ecosystem that fishermen depend on.

Read the full article at WMTW

Researchers Say the Oceans Have Passed a Milestone for Acidification

January 5, 2026 — The past 12 months have been worrying for researchers who study the chemistry of the ocean. More and more evidence has been published showing that human activities are fundamentally altering this chemistry in an acidic direction.

At the end of 2025, it seems clear ocean acidification is pushing the largest habitat on Earth into a risky zone.

Ocean acidification is part of the global carbon cycle. When carbon dioxide dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid. This acid releases hydrogen ions, which lower the seawater’s pH balance.

pH balance

This sliding scale of 14 points indicates the acid/alkaline balance of a solution. Position 1 indicates the highest acidity, 14 the highest alkalinity. It stands for “potential of hydrogen”, because the scale is determined by the concentration of hydrogen ions.

Carbon dioxide emitted by human activities may be largely released into the atmosphere, but it does not all stay there. Huge amounts are absorbed by the ocean. A study published in 2023 determined that the ocean absorbed 25% of anthropogenic CO2 emitted from the early 1960s to the late 2010s. This has so far saved humanity from greater global warming.

Because of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the past century, more CO2 has been taken up by the ocean, causing it to acidify.

Read the full article at the Maritime Executive

Changes are coming to the Chesapeake Bay, thanks to climate change

December 31, 2025 — Warming temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are changing the Chesapeake Bay.

New kinds of fish are venturing to the bay and long-established species face challenges as their bodies respond to warmer temperatures and changing salinity — salt and ion levels — in bay waters, recent studies show.

“We know climate is warming, and so are the waters of the bay, and we’ve seen this in our own time,” said Mary C. Fabrizio, a professor of natural resources at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

“We need to look at all the processes in the body of the fish that are affected by temperature, things like growth, things like reproduction and feeding behaviors.” She said these include: “When do fish migrate up river to spawn, or when do fish return to the bay to feed? And how do fish use the bay as a nursery area?”

Read the full article at Daily Press

Conflicting Ocean Indicators Suggest Moderate Returns of Pacific Salmon

December 30, 2025 — Juvenile salmon encountered a mixed bag of ocean conditions off the West Coast in 2025, based on an annual analysis by NOAA Fisheries and Oregon State University researchers.

The researchers examine 16 ocean indicators, from temperature and salinity to the quantity and quality of food available to juvenile salmon during their first months in the ocean. That is a crucial period for young fish as they search for prey to grow big and fast enough to stay ahead of predators.

Researchers refined the indicators through years of monitoring. They help fish managers anticipate how many juvenile salmon will survive to grow large enough to be caught in fisheries or return to rivers as adults in the next few years. The insight can help shape fisheries worth millions of dollars to the coastal economy and ensure that recreational, commercial, and tribal fisheries continue at sustainable levels.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

ALASKA: Alaska fisheries in 2025: turmoil, economic and environmental challenges and some bright spots

December 26, 2025 — For Alaska’s fishing industry and fishing-dependent communities, 2025 was a year of turmoil and uncertainty, much of it imposed by ideological pursuits from the new Trump administration.

The short-lived agency called the Department of Government Efficiency hacked away at federal funding for science across the board. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in particular was in its crosshairs; the Heritage Institute’s Project 2025 blueprint for the second Trump administration heaped scorn on NOAA, saying its National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and other agencies “form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” The NMFS’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which does the bulk of the research on which fishery managers depend, was among the agencies that suffered deep budget and staffing cuts.

The prospect of more cuts is unsettling, some officials said. “I guess now we’re getting to a point that I’m getting really concerned and almost freaked out about how much data that we’re potentially losing that we’re used to having,” Anne Vanderhoeven, a member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, said on Dec. 4 during that body’s December meeting.

Read the full article at the Kodiak Daily Mirror

Ecosystem shifts, glacial flooding and ‘rusting rivers’ among Alaska impacts in Arctic report

December 18, 2025 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its annual Arctic Report Card on Tuesday, which documents the way rising temperatures, diminished ice, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and vegetation shifts are transforming the region and affecting its people. The agency has released the report for 20 years as a way to track changes in the Arctic, according to Yereth Rosen with the Alaska Beacon.

“The Arctic continues to warm faster than the global average, with the 10 years that comprise the last decade marking the 10 warmest years on record,” Steve Thur, NOAA’s acting administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research and the agency’s acting chief scientist, said at a news conference Tuesday.

The report card is a peer-reviewed collaboration of more than 100 scientists from 13 countries, with numerous coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was officially released at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in New Orleans, where Thur and other officials held the news conference.

The report is the first under the second Trump administration, at a time when the federal government’s commitment to documenting Arctic climate change has diminished: The president has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and federal departments are cancelling climate change-related research and projects, as well as scrubbing climate information from public view.

Read the full article at Alaska News Source

Crab prices may rise during the holidays due to delayed season

December 18, 2025 — Delays in California’s Dungeness crab season are continuing to impact Humboldt County and other parts of Northern California as state wildlife officials conduct safety testing for domoic acid, a naturally occurring toxin that can accumulate in shellfish.

While much of Humboldt County remains closed to crabbing, the ripple effects of the delay are already being felt across the state. With local crab limited or unavailable in several regions, seafood markets are turning to out-of-state supply, driving prices higher during what is typically one of the busiest times of year.

The delays stem from elevated levels of domoic acid detected during preseason testing conducted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Domoic acid is a neurotoxin produced by certain types of marine algae and can build up in shellfish under specific ocean conditions.

“Domoic acid is produced by a naturally occurring single-celled marine alga,” said Christy Juhasz, a senior environmental scientist specialist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Marine Region. “Under certain ocean conditions, that alga can proliferate and release this toxin into the water.”

Read the full article at KRCR

Ecosystem shifts, glacial flooding and ‘rusting rivers’ among Alaska impacts in Arctic report

December 17, 2025 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its annual Arctic Report Card on Tuesday, which documents the way rising temperatures, diminished ice, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and vegetation shifts are transforming the region and affecting its people. The agency has released the report for 20 years as a way to track changes in the Arctic.

“The Arctic continues to warm faster than the global average, with the 10 years that comprise the last decade marking the 10 warmest years on record,” Steve Thur, NOAA’s acting administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research and the agency’s acting chief scientist, said at a news conference Tuesday.

The report card is a peer-reviewed collaboration of more than 100 scientists from 13 countries, with numerous coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was officially released at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in New Orleans, where Thur and other officials held the news conference.

The report is the first under the second Trump administration, at a time when the federal government’s commitment to documenting Arctic climate change has diminished: The president has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and federal departments are cancelling climate change-related research and projects, as well as scrubbing climate information from public view.

Under directives from the Trump administration, NOAA no longer provides information that the National Snow and Ice Data Center once used to monitor sea ice and snow cover, for example. The Colorado-based center now relies on satellite information from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for its sea ice reports, and it has reduced its analysis.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

Chevron’s demise could snarl Trump environmental agenda

December 16, 2025 — A new slate of environmental rollbacks from the Trump administration are poised to serve as early tests of a recent Supreme Court ruling that limited federal agencies’ power to defend their rules against legal attack.

Over the last few weeks, EPA and the Interior Department have floated rescissions of protections for federal waters, vulnerable species and climate change.

Each proposal presents a dramatic change in position from earlier regulations, and in the absence of Chevron deference — which gave agencies the benefit of the doubt when statutes are unclear — the Trump administration will have to make the case that its approach is the best interpretation of federal law.

Read the full article at E&E News

New England’s shrimp fishery to shut down for the long haul after years of decline

December 11, 2025 — Regulators voted Thursday to extend a shutdown preventing New England fishermen from catching shrimp, a historic industry that has recently fallen victim to warming oceans.

New England fishermen, especially those from Maine, used to catch millions of pounds of small pink shrimp in the winter, but the business has been under a fishing moratorium since 2014. Rising temperatures have created an inhospitable environment for the shrimp, and their population is too low to fish sustainably, scientists have said.

An arm of the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted Thursday to shut down the fishery for at least another three years. Abundance of the shrimp remained “poor” this year despite slightly improved environmental conditions, the Atlantic States said in documents.

Read the full article at the Associated Press