Saving Seafood

CBD sues NOAA Fisheries over lack of queen conch protections

July 10, 2026 — The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) sued NOAA Fisheries over inadequate queen conch protection, noting the agency has yet to designate critical habitat for the snail despite listing the species as a threatened under the Endangered Species Act

“The Fisheries Service’s failure to protect the coral reefs and other places where the queen conch lives is driving this iconic snail closer to extinction,” CBD attorney Alex Muir said in a release. “Without this crucial protection, we’ll have to watch pollution, dredging, and climate change continue to threaten these charming marine snails. What’s so frustrating is that this is preventable. If federal officials move quickly to shield their habitat, it’d give these conchs a fighting chance as they struggle to survive devastating overharvesting.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

El Niño is here, and it’s already scrambling fisheries throughout the Pacific

July 8, 2026 — We’re not even one month into “super” El Niño, the natural Pacific weather pattern characterized by warmer than average sea surface temperatures, and fisheries around the world are already getting scrambled.

In Peru, government officials have effectively canceled the fishing season for anchovies, one of the country’s most important exports and a leading source of fish oil and animal feed globally. The Indian government is preparing for a season of smaller, less plentiful Indian mackerel. Meanwhile, in Southern California, recreational and commercial fishers have reported some of the most successful months of tuna fishing they’ve ever seen.

Read the full article at Grist

Termination of Gulf of Maine leases casts further uncertainty over offshore wind

July 7, 2026 — The termination of two federal leases in the Gulf of Maine present the latest layer of uncertainty for offshore wind projects, once thought to be key to Maine’s energy secure, low-carbon future.

Last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced a settlement agreement with Chicago-based Invenergy, which included the termination of offshore wind leases in Maine, California and New York.

“It’s a bad deal for Mainers, at a time when energy is getting more and more expensive, we are spending public dollars to not build energy resources and to not bring electricity prices down,” said Nick Janzen with Maine Conservation Voters.

As part of the agreement, the federal government will reimburse Invenergy up to $765 million, which the company will then reinvest in natural gas-fired power plants and geothermal power generation projects.

The administration of President Donald Trump has cited “national security concerns” about the development of offshore wind as the reason for terminating leases, and stopping work on other projects.

“Rather than waiting years for the projects to materialize, the Trump administration is prioritizing investments in existing infrastructure and functioning supply chains that can create jobs now and deliver economic benefits faster,” an Interior spokesperson said in a statement last week.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

Warming seas and El Niño put West Coast sea lion pups at new risk

July 6, 2026 — A developing El Niño in the tropical Pacific is expected to strengthen later this year, adding to already unusually warm ocean waters off the West Coast and raising concerns for marine ecosystems still recovering from recent heat stress.

Scientists say the combined effects of a lingering marine heatwave and a strengthening El Niño could disrupt food supplies for key species in the California Current, even as coastal upwelling may offer some localized relief.

The overlap of two warming patterns — one regional and one climate-scale — could compound stress on marine food webs that have already been repeatedly disrupted over the past decade.

Read the full article at USA TODAY

RHODE ISLAND: Climate change challenges commercial fishing industry

June 26, 2026 — In Rhode Island, the commercial fishing industry is a pillar of the state’s economy and culture, but with global warming and dynamic environmental changes, the industry is sailing into the unknown.

While New England is outpacing much of the United States in rising temperatures, Rhode Island is warming even faster than its regional neighbors, according to a 2022 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and The Providence Journal.

Sea levels have also risen considerably across the ocean state, with the Newport tide gauge rising 10.1 inches over the past century, according to NOAA.

Rhode Island’s sea levels have gained momentum over the last decade, now rising by an inch every eight years, according to Sea Level Rise. This growth is evident in Providence, while the capital city took 40 years to rise six inches, it’s now projected to gain another six inches in just the next 16 years.

The Narragansett Bay water has also increased by three degrees Fahrenheit over the past century with water levels rising up to seven inches, according to Save The Bay. These unpredictable environmental changes make it increasingly difficult for commercial fishermen and fisheries to rely on consistent ecosystems while abiding by catch quotas.

Read the full article at East Bay RI

Warming oceans were turning fish male, then something unexpected happened

June 25, 2026 — In many fish species, water temperature determines the sex of offspring. As oceans warm, that mechanism has raised a troubling question: could entire fish populations collapse simply by running out of females?

A new ten-year study offers an unexpected and cautiously hopeful answer.

In European seabass exposed to elevated temperatures, the initial spike in male births reversed itself by the third generation, with females coming back in greater numbers.

The warming effect, it turns out, is not necessarily cumulative.

The findings emerged from an international experiment conducted across Spain, France, and Brazil involving more than 3,000 European seabass over a decade.

Brazilian contributors to the study included Maira da Silva Rodrigues, who analyzed the gonads of the third generation of fish during her doctoral studies at the Botucatu Institute of Biosciences of São Paulo State University, under the guidance of Rafael Henrique Nóbrega.

Read the full article at Earth.com

Predicting Future Northeast Ocean Conditions: Forecast Debuts in 2026 State of the Ecosystem Reports

June 24, 2026 — Fishermen, fisheries managers, and scientists have observed changes in our oceans that are impacting the location and growth of fish stocks. Until recently, there was no reliable way to predict these changes. This year, the 2026 Mid-Atlantic and New England State of the Ecosystem reports contain the first operational seasonal and decadal ocean forecasts for U.S. coastal fisheries regions. These ocean forecasts provide predictions of future marine ecosystem conditions that could impact the availability of commercial, recreational, and protected fisheries species. They can help resource managers make more informed decisions.

The Northeast Integrated Ecosystem Assessment team produces the State of the Ecosystem reports annually for the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Councils. They provide a synthesis of Northeast Shelf ecosystem information. They are part of a holistic approach to maintain healthy and productive fisheries by considering environmental and socioeconomic information in decision making. The reports:

  • Contain current and long-term information about the Northeast Shelf ecosystems
  • Document how well the ecosystems are currently meeting fishery management objectives
  • Highlight potential risks to meeting those objectives.

However, resource managers have long sought forward-looking ocean forecasts that predict future ocean conditions to help them make more informed decisions.

“Due to limited resources, we have moved to more multi-year specifications for stocks, so the impacts of our decisions are now longer lasting. Given the increasingly dynamic nature of the ocean, and management’s sometimes-limited ability to be as dynamic in response, delivery of ocean forecasts to the Council provides more tools at our disposal to make better decisions that span multiple years.” — Megan Ware, member of the New England Fisheries Management Council

NOAA scientists in the Northeast are now providing their Councils with predicted ocean temperatures in this year’s” State of the Ecosystem reports using NOAA’s Modular Ocean Model version 6 ocean forecasts, developed by NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. The inclusion of the forecasts marks the agency’s first application of an ocean forecast in an ecosystem-based fisheries management product.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Scientists tag Pacific cod to track climate shifts in the Bering Sea

June 24, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries scientists have completed a multi-year satellite tagging study of Pacific cod in the Bering Sea, shedding new light on how the species responds to warming ocean conditions and what those movements mean for fisheries management.

The study, launched in 2019 and led by Dr. Susanne McDermott of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, was prompted by a dramatic northward shift in Pacific cod distribution that began in 2017, when the Bering Sea entered a period of unprecedented warming and sharply reduced sea ice. Pacific cod support Alaska’s second largest groundfish fishery and play a central role in the broader Bering Sea ecosystem.

“There was tremendous anxiety over what’s going on,” said McDermott. “Why are these fish in different places? Is this something that’s changing on a population level? Is this just the same population moving into different areas?”

To find answers, the research team — which also included fisheries biologists Julie Nielsen and Kimberly Rand — deployed pop-up satellite archival tags on cod in both summer and winter. The tags recorded depth, water temperature, light levels, and acceleration at intervals as short as one second, and transmitted that data to the Argos satellite network after detaching from the fish and surfacing. Tags that were physically recovered — returned by fishermen or beachcombers — yielded the full, unabridged dataset.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Official US ‘Shellfish’ Definition Changed, Removes ‘Having a Shell’

June 24, 2026 — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has finalized a regulatory change redefining “shellfish,” removing the long-standing requirement that species under the classification must have an external shell.

The rule, published June 23 in the Federal Register, updates language in the Code of Federal Regulations to align with modern science and industry practices, officials said.

This means that squid, cuttlefish, octopus, and other cephalopods will now be included within the regulatory definition of shellfish, The agency said the move would clear up any ambiguity about classification, which it added has led to inconsistent treatment of mollusks and related species at U.S. ports of entry.

Read the full article at Newsweek

Our Ocean Conference results in USD 6.4 billion in global commitments toward blue economic advancements

June 22, 2026 — The 2026 Our Ocean Conference, held recently in Mombasa, Kenya, brought together over 100 governments, businesses, and civil society organizations and resulted in 320 new commitments valued at USD 6.4 billion (EUR 5.5 billion) to advance ocean conservation, sustainable fisheries, climate resilience, and blue economic ventures.

Commitments from the conference include work that will soon be done in French Polynesia, Canada, and Kenya.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource