Saving Seafood

Helping Alaska’s Coastal Communities Adapt with Next-Generation Ocean Forecasting

November 18, 2025 — Changing ocean conditions threaten lives, livelihoods, and invaluable marine resources across the United States. From marine heatwaves and the collapse of snow crab populations in Alaska, to last year’s historic hurricane season, the day-to-day realities of people throughout the nation are being impacted by reduced food security, increased operational costs for fisheries, and higher seafood costs for consumers.

To help fishing communities and fisheries managers anticipate and respond to these challenges, NOAA is leading a nationwide effort called the Changing Ecosystems and Fisheries Initiative. This initiative is building a powerful new ocean forecasting system that delivers short and long-term predictions of future ocean and ecosystem conditions. Through a combination of high-resolution modeling and community engagement, it aims to provide the information needed to support food security, protect American fisheries, and strengthen coastal economies in the face of rapid changes.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Coastal ocean acidification advancing faster than expected, threatening local economies

November 14, 2025 — New research from the University of St Andrews has found that some coastal areas will become much more acidic than previously anticipated. With added atmospheric CO2, these areas are acidifying more quickly than thought, posing an existential threat to coastal economies around the world.

Because atmospheric CO2 and ocean pH (acidity) are tightly coupled, the more CO2 that is released into the atmosphere, the more is absorbed by seawater, making the ocean progressively more acidic.

However, in a paper published in Nature Communications, researchers, using the California Current as an example, show that oceanic upwelling systems actually amplify .

Read the full article at phys.org

Shark research effort still has bite after 50 years

November 14, 2025 –Aboard this 65-foot vessel, nothing much happens most of the time. The VHF marine radio crackles with mundane chatter. The Atlantic Ocean ebbs and swells. Below deck, crew members resort to playing Uno.

Then, everything happens all at once.

After four hours of “soaking” in ocean currents, the baited fishhooks are ready to be reeled in. A huge winch squeals to life, winding in the mile-long fishing line. Just below the surface of the water, a ghostly silhouette flickers into view.

It has arrived — the day’s first shark.

“Up!” several voices call in unison, an instruction to raise the hammock-like gurney six or seven feet to the boat’s railing. The sandbar shark nearly thrashes free, but two gloved hands show up just in time to gently, but firmly, coax the giant fish to stay put.

“That was a very alive one,” said Samuel Ruth, a few minutes after returning the shark into the waters where the ocean mingles with the Chesapeake Bay.

his is catch-and-release with a higher purpose. During the minute or two that the shark is out of the water, Ruth and his colleagues race to record vital information — its sex, length and weight (if it’s small enough to fit on the scale). The whirlwind of activity also includes collecting a DNA sample, affixing an ID tag below its dorsal fin and snapping photos to aid in future identification.

For more than five decades, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s shark research group has worked to pull back the veil on these mysterious creatures. Their research has helped protect sharks from overfishing, documented how they respond to climate change and shed light on their not infrequent appearances in the Chesapeake Bay.

The work is crucial for understanding sharks themselves as well as the marine ecosystems they inhabit, said Jameson Gregg, a senior marine scientist at VIMS.

Read the full article at the Bay Journal

Embrace ‘blue’ foods as a climate strategy at COP30, fisheries ministers say (commentary)

November 12, 2025 — As two coastal countries connected by the Atlantic Ocean and five centuries of shared history, Brazil and Portugal have long appreciated the value of “blue” or aquatic foods, including our shared love of bacalhau, or salted cod.

Portugal ranks third in the world and first in the EU for per capita fish and seafood consumption, while in Brazil, aquatic foods support more than 3 million livelihoods, with consumption of whole, raw fish reaching as much as 800 grams (28 ounces) per day in the Amazon, which is hosting the U.N. climate talks for the first time in its gateway city of Belém.

But as our global food system comes under increasing pressure, from climate change to shifting diets, we also share the recognition that blue foods play a crucial role in building more resilient, adaptive, and nutritionally balanced food systems.

Read the full article at Mongabay

ICFA Urges COP30 Negotiators to Recognize Critical Role of Fisheries in Climate Action

November 10, 2025 — The following was released by the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations:

The International Coalition of Fisheries Associations (ICFA) reminds climate change negotiators of the critical role fisheries play in both climate mitigation and adaptation. ICFA emphasizes two key points: (1) the fisheries sector’s contribution to mitigating climate change; and (2) the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems and fish stocks. Related to both is the critical role blue foods play in global food security and nutrition.

Next week, during the 30th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, countries are expected to deliver more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s) and adopt indicators under the Global Goal on Adaptation. 

“Fisheries produce low carbon proteins and lower the overall carbon intensity of the global food system. But ocean ecosystems and fisheries are impacted by climate change. We need to prioritize adaptation strategies to ensure resilience and contribute to the sector’s mitigation potential. Global food security, nutrition and the socio-economic well-being of billions is on the line,” says ICFA Chair, Ivan Lopez Van der Veen.

 In a recently adopted resolution, ICFA calls on Parties to:

·         Recognize that the fisheries sector plays a crucial role in combating climate change, as fisheries products and blue foods have among the lowest carbon footprints of all animal proteins. Implementation of NDCs 3.0 should increase the proportion of these products in the global diet to substantially reduce the carbon intensity of the global food system and support achievement of several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);

·         Take into full consideration the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems, fish stocks and economic activities at sea, and encourage all Parties to prioritize adaptation strategies that strengthen the resilience of ocean and fish resources. Better adaptation can contribute to the sector’s mitigation potential;

·         Bring together policy makers and the economic sectors, including the fisheries sector, to find pragmatic and implementable solutions to tackle climate change and to adapt to its unavoidable effects.

Read ICFA’s full resolution on climate and fisheries here. 

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Since 1988 the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations (ICFA) has been a unified seafood policy voice committed to the sustainable use of marine resources and dedicated to global food security. For more information, please visit www.fishcoalition.org

MSC research finds tuna fisheries are at most risk from climate change

November 4, 2025 — A new suite of research led by the Marine Stewardship Council has found fisheries targeting tuna species are at the most risk from the impacts of climate change.

The research paper, “Climate change risks to future sustainable fishing using global seafood ecolabel data,” was recently published in Cell Reports Sustainability and reviewed more than 500 fisheries around the world with a sustainability certification. The study examined species under multiple gear types and species, including whitefish, krill, lobster, and tuna.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Research reports capture climate change impacts on halibut

October 29, 2025 — Two recent research reports focused on halibut spatial dynamics, habitat occupation, and spawning dynamics suggest that new management considerations of commercial stocks may be warranted.

The first document, published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences this past spring, focuses on identifying halibut spawning dynamics, including locating spawning grounds, and identifying the conditions occupied and the timing of occupation on these grounds, notes Austin Flanigan, a fisheries master student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and principal author of both papers.

Researchers attached pop-up satellite telemetry tags to large female halibut in the Northern Bering Sea, with time series data and tag reporting locations being used to infer spawning behavior and to identify occupied spawning habitat conditions, location, and timing

The research team found that these halibut occupied spawning habitats later and farther north than previously described. Their spawning habitat was occupied from January to May and reached as far north as the Russian continental shelf. They also observed that 42 percent of mature halibut never occupied presumed spawning habitat, suggesting the presence of skip spawning behavior. Such findings, they said, suggest that Pacific halibut exhibit unique spawning dynamics in the Northern Bering Sea, which may result in reduced reproductive potential within the northern population component.

Flanigan said that understanding reproductive output would require fecundity (number of eggs produced) data, as if skip spawning Pacific halibut have the same fecundity as those that spawn annually, then they would produce fewer offspring.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Marine heat wave known as ‘the Blob’ returns to Pacific, but so far spares Oregon and Washington

October 17, 2025 — A massive heat wave is hitting the Pacific Ocean from Kamchatka to California.

Water temperatures several degrees above normal span thousands of miles, though they have mostly stopped short of the Pacific Northwest coast. Cool water welling up from the depths is thought to be keeping surface temperatures near the Oregon and Washington coasts closer to normal.

Beyond disrupting the ocean’s food web and fisheries, the underwater heat wave, known as “the Blob,” can alter weather on land thousands of miles away.

Since May, an ever-shifting mass of overheated water has occupied much of the northern half of the Pacific Ocean.

In early September, it covered 3 million square miles — about the size of the contiguous United States — according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s “Blobtracker” program.

Read the full article at OPB

In the Delaware River, climate change and invasive species threaten shad, ‘America’s founding fish’

October 13, 2025 — American shad were a major food source for early European settlers and Native Americans who lived along the Delaware River.

Known as “America’s founding fish,” the species were so abundant that it was said people could “walk across their backs.” In 1896, more than 4 million shad were caught in a single year. But by the 1900s, overfishing caused a steep decline.

A new study published this month indicates that American shad, as well as river herring, have failed to recover in the Delaware River, which could threaten the aquatic ecosystem.

Read the full article at WHYY

Return of The Blob: Heat wave spans Pacific Ocean

October 10, 2025 — A massive heat wave is hitting the Pacific Ocean from Kamchatka to California.

Water temperatures several degrees above normal span thousands of miles, though they have mostly stopped short of the Pacific Northwest coast. Cool water welling up from the depths is thought to be keeping surface temperatures near the Oregon and Washington coasts closer to normal.

Beyond disrupting the ocean’s food web and fisheries, the underwater heat wave, known as “The Blob,” can alter weather on land thousands of miles away.

Since May, an ever-shifting mass of overheated water has occupied much of the northern half of the Pacific Ocean.

Read the full article at KUOW