Saving Seafood

MAINE: What warming waters could mean for Maine’s fishing economy

February 10, 2026 — Fishing is a major part of Maine’s economy, with commercial fisheries generating about $709 million in 2024, according to state data. But what happens when a warming climate begins to collide with business?

Scientists consider the Gulf of Maine to be one of the fastest-warming ocean regions in the world — and changing conditions have already reshaped parts of the industry.

In Maine, warming waters have contributed to long-term declines in northern shrimp populations. Shrimp fisheries in the Gulf of Maine have been closed for more than a decade, after regulators imposed a moratorium on shrimping — a ban that has now been extended until 2028.

And it’s not just shrimp.

Graham Sherwood, a senior scientist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, says warming waters could begin to affect Maine’s billion-dollar lobster industry, even as the fishery remains strong today.

Marketplace’s Sabri Ben-Achour spoke with Sherwood. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Read the full article at Marketplace

Rising ocean temperatures could devastate scallop fishery

February 10, 2026 — The Northeast Atlantic sea scallop fishery, one of the most valuable fisheries in the world at more than $500 million per year, faces serious threats from ecosystem changes, according to the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation.

Although the catch hasn’t dropped yet, climate change poses a serious threat to the scallop fishery in decades to come.

“It’s a huge fishery with hundreds of boats and thousands of crew members,” said Fred Mattera, president of the Commercial Fisheries Research Center, which is based in South Kingstown. “The crews are used to making hundreds of thousands of dollars. If that’s reduced by 30, 40 or 50%, that’s going to have a devastating impact.”

Due to global warming and an increase in atmospheric temperature, the ocean’s potential of hydrogen, or pH, will decrease, leading to ocean acidification, according to Rebecca Smoak, a research biologist at the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation. The process happens when carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, causing the CO2​ levels in the water to increase.

Read the full article at The Westerly Sun

MASSACHUSETTS: New bill takes aim at climate-driven quota challenges

February 9, 2026 — Legislation introduced by a trio of U.S. senators would require NOAA Fisheries to more formally account for climate-driven shifts in fish stocks when setting commercial fishing quotas.

The bill, titled the Supporting Health Interstate Fisheries in Transition (SHIFT) Act, is sponsored by Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts. The legislation would direct the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to investigate when fish stock has shifted from one regional fishery management council’s jurisdiction into another’s and coordinate management between councils going forward, according to an article published by SeafoodSource.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

US lawmakers want NOAA Fisheries to consider climate impacts and shifting stocks in setting fishing quotas

February 5, 2026 — A trio of U.S. senators have introduced legislation that would require NOAA Fisheries to consider the impact of climate change on fish distribution in setting commercial fishing quotas.

“This legislation addresses outdated fishing requirements and ensures that climate change conditions like rising water temperatures that shift fish stocks are prioritized in fishery management plans. Our changing climate has seriously altered our oceans, forcing fishermen to travel far distances to earn a living or throw back valuable fish,” U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said in a release.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

New report raises red flags on looming threat that could devastate global seafood industry: ‘Adaptation is not optional’

January 26, 2026 — The nonprofit financial think tank Planet Tracker released a new report on the impacts of extreme weather on the seafood industry, which concluded that failing to adapt could cost billions, as Seafood Source reported.

How are rising temperatures disrupting the seafood industry?

The report found that if the seafood industry and society in general don’t take substantial action to reduce the risks of rising temperatures, it could cost $15 billion annually by 2050 due to higher ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, acidification, and low oxygen levels.

Depending on pollution levels, fish stocks could decline by up to 21% by 2100, which will impact seafood companies, investors, and the broader economy.

The new report, titled “Catch It Like It’s Hot,” explained how a rise in atmospheric pollution directly affects the seafood industry through factors like shifting currents, delayed spawning, greater disease risk, and higher frequency of algal blooms and marine heatwaves.

In turn, supply chains are affected, infrastructure damage increases, assets are stranded, revenue drops, and more companies close.

These disruptions threaten the economy and society, posing risks to food security, employment, government revenue from fishing, and consumer purchasing power. The effects later cascade through the financial system, impacting banks, insurers, and asset managers.

Read the full article at The Cool Down

The Future of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management: A Conversation with Senior Scientist Dr. Jason Link

January 21, 2026 — Jason Link has been a scientist with NOAA Fisheries for more than 25 years. In 2025, he was honored with the American Fisheries Society’s Award of Excellence, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the aquatic sciences. You can read the first installment here.

In your own words, what is ecosystem-based fisheries management? How does it differ from more traditional single species management?

Ecosystem-based fisheries management, in one word, is about trade-offs. When folks I encounter in my everyday life ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a scientist who studies fish. They say “What do you do with that?” And I tell them about ecosystem-based fisheries management, and how it’s sort of like managing the restaurant supply chain. We model all the people that eat at Burger King, and that has impacts on what people that eat at McDonald’s do, and it has impacts on what people that eat at Taco Bell do. It has impacts all throughout the restaurant chain.

It’s the same in natural resource management: The trade-offs of any one choice we make have trickle-through effects on everything else. And we’ve always kind of known that and had a sense of that, but we’ve never really formally evaluated what those trade-offs would be. And that’s a lot of what I’ve been trying to do.

Why should people–especially those who aren’t fisheries scientists–care about ecosystem-based fisheries management?

I have a lot of family in the Midwest, and they’re familiar with what I do. I’ll say to them, “Hey, you guys are impacting us. Did you know that?” And they don’t know. But the Mississippi River drains into the Gulf. That hypoxic zone in the Gulf comes from farmland. The Midwest is influencing what we’re able to catch. And what we’re able to catch has huge ramifications on regional and local economies.

It also has huge ramifications on what the national seafood market is—what you’re able to get at a supermarket in Iowa or Illinois or Indiana is impacted. And the challenges that you have in the Midwest or the Great Plains, for example, can influence even the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest and some of the salmon there. There’s probably fewer direct impacts, but it’s all still interconnected. The other thing I emphasize is the market economy and how connected fisheries commodities are with the commodities of other foodstuffs we eat. I don’t think people realize that. I didn’t realize it before I started looking into it.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

On the Frontlines of Ocean Warming, Maine Plans for What Comes Next

January 16, 2026 — The Gulf of Maine, often referred to as a sea within a sea, extends along the eastern seaboard from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to New Brunswick, Canada. Teeming with a bounty of fish and lobsters, the watershed serves as a recipe for abundance. Nutrients from the warm Gulf Stream, the cool Labrador Current, and counterclockwise coastal currents gush into the bay, stratifying into varying temperate zones. But things have changed.

The Gulf of Maine is warming at a rate faster than nearly any other ocean surface on the planet, leading to shifts in the distribution of marine species and contributing to sea level rise. Think of it like a bathtub with hot and cold taps. As the Labrador Current weakens, accelerated warming has increasingly been impacting marine life and economic activities on Maine’s working waterfront.

According to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s (GMRI) latest report, the watershed experienced its twelfth-warmest year in 2024. Climbing temperatures, though incremental, are poised to have drastic impacts on fisheries and New England communities.

In Hot Water

Maine is combating the effects of global warming in real time and, in doing so, helping researchers better understand the global ocean.

The Gulf of Maine is home to beloved wildlife, from North Atlantic right whales and seabirds to iconic fish stocks and lobsters, all of which are threatened. Warming waters have already affected cold-water species, like herring, which are declining, and warm-water species, like butterfish.

Shifts in the food web have a ripple effect. Puffins are in limbo, forced to change what they feed to their chicks. And invasive species like green crabs have settled in, killing essential eelgrass beds that juvenile crustaceans rely on for protective habitat.

The impact rising tides have on coastal infrastructure are not less noteworthy. In 2020, Maine published its climate action plan, dedicating an entire section to better understand how a warming, rising Gulf will impact marine resources and communities. There’s great emotional value in both sectors, not to mention $528 million in yearly revenue from the state’s lobster industry and $9 billion in tourist revenue.

Read the full article at Earth.org

VMI data used to study marine heatwaves may also monitor ecosystem health

January 15, 2026 — Researchers studying ecosystem dynamics in Pacific albacore and bluefin tuna documented by movement of fishing fleets during heat waves say the data can also be used to understand ecosystem health.

“Fishermen are increasingly recognized as top predators and have many of the qualities of effective ecosystem sentinel, ” said Heather Welch, an associate project scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz, who led the study. These fleets serve as apex predators, effectively locating their prey.

The study summary discusses the ecological impact of Northeast Pacific marine heatwaves between 2010 and 2024 primarily off Oregon and Washington, mainly within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, but also on the high seas. The study examined one million satellite-based locations of 600 U.S. fishing vessels to determine whether such predator geolocation data could help assess the ecological impact of Northeast Pacific marine heatwaves during that period.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Congress Moves to Preserve NOAA Funding for Fisheries and Climate Research

January 14, 2026 — On Monday, Senators moved a funding package forward that would preserve 2026 funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), despite the Trump administration’s proposed deep cuts to the agency last year.

The appropriations bill, which funds multiple agencies, already passed in the House; the Senate is expected to send it to President Donald Trump’s desk this week.

Last year, Trump requested a $1.5 billion cut to the agency’s roughly $6 billion budget. A memo from his Office of Management and Budget also proposed eliminating NOAA’s office dedicated to research on climate and weather patterns, zeroing out funding for weather and ocean labs, and moving regulation of fisheries to the Fish & Wildlife Service.

Experts warned the budget cuts could have dire consequences for farmers, who rely on weather data, and the country’s fisheries, which rely on NOAA to enforce catch limits, invest in habitat conservation, and preserve coastlines.

Read the full article at Civil Eats

Study tracks fishing boats to see how heat waves affect fish distribution

January 14, 2026 — Marine heat waves have become longer and more frequent along the U.S. West Coast, as elsewhere in the world. But heating doesn’t always lead fish to change their location. A new study suggests a better way to tell if such ecological shifts are happening: Use fishing vessel tracking data.

The study, published Dec. 22, 2025, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that tracking data could provide early detection of extreme northward and inshore shifts in albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) and Pacific bluefin tuna (T. orientalis) distribution in response to heat waves. The data also showed when such shifts weren’t happening, despite high sea surface temperatures. Related data also showed when there was low albacore availability for fishing.

The study indicates that tracking data can in some cases be used as an early-warning signal for ecological change in the ocean, the authors suggest.

“We have so much data on fishing vessel activity,” study lead author Heather Welch, a marine spatial ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a statement. “These data are traditionally used for surveillance, and it is exciting that they may also be useful for understanding ecosystem health.”

Read the full article at Mongabay