Saving Seafood

House passes bill extending right whale regulatory pause

September 2, 2026 — The U.S. House of Representatives has passed H.R. 9436, legislation that would extend the current pause on new North Atlantic right whale regulations affecting the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries through 2035.

The Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act of 2026 passed the House on Sept. 1 by a 219-196 vote. The bill would extend the existing regulatory pause from its current expiration at the end of 2028 to Dec. 31, 2035.

The legislation has drawn support from Northeast commercial fishing organizations, which argue additional time is needed for ongoing research and technology development to inform future whale regulations. Conservation groups, meanwhile, say the extension would delay measures they believe are necessary to reduce the risk of serious injury and mortality to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), which urged lawmakers to pass the measure ahead of the House vote, welcomed its passage.

“The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association strongly supports passage of H.R. 9436,” Jason Joyce, NEFSA’s director of advocacy, said in a statement provided to National Fisherman.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

MAINE: Lobsters remain plentiful in Maine, but outside forces cast uncertainty on industry

September 1, 2026 — There was a time when lobsters were so abundant along the Maine coast that they could be plucked by hand from shallow water. Those days are long gone, but for most people — whose interactions with lobsters happen on plates and rolls — it might be hard to say how lobsters and the lobster industry are doing. Lobster rolls might cost more, like everything else, but they’re still available.

Lobstermen are at the mercy of a range of outside forces: economic, ecological, regulatory. Trends in the lobster harvest and its value suggest lobstering is in a healthy position right now. But zooming out to include factors such as global trade and climate change show there is much uncertainty.

In the long view, the number of lobsters coming across wharfs is way up. From 1950 until the end of the 1980s, Maine lobstermen were landing around 20 million pounds of lobster each year. Some years the amount deviated, as low as 16 million and as high as 24 million, but the catch looks pretty consistent through those four decades.

Read the full article at Harpswell Anchour

VIRGINIA: Protesters harass menhaden fishermen

September 1, 2026 — Chesapeake Bay menhaden fishing protesters in small craft continue to harass Ocean Harvesters’ boats and fishermen by circling in front of the firms’ steamers attempting to keep boats from making sets.

Ocean Harvesters of Reedville, Va., harvests menhaden and sells it to Omega Protein, also located in Reedville. Omega Protein buys the fish from Ocean Harvesters and processes them into fish meal, fish oil, and other products.

Ocean Harvesters and Omega Protein are part of the only large menhaden reduction fishery in operation on the East Coast of the United States and have drawn protests from environmental groups throughout the mid-Atlantic who want to prevent menhaden reduction fishing on Chesapeake Bay.

“Over the past three years we have seen a few dozen of these recreational fishing boats racing to get in front of us and just circling so we either can’t get to where we want to go, or to try and block us from setting out nets,” says Monty Deihl chief executive officer of Ocean Harvesters. “These go hand-in-hand with the threats we get on social media and the coordinated effort to disrupt our operations.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: What’s the biggest threat to the lobster industry?

September 1, 2026 — Lobstermen are under threat. They all agree on that much. The threats they describe vary from one to the next. But they are worried about their future, and the future of a livelihood that many learned from their fathers and grandfathers and want to pass to their children and grandchildren.

The risks are larger than any one lobsterman — or even the industry as a whole. Lobstering “is not only an economic driver of coastal and island communities, it is an identity of our communities,” said Kristin Garabedian, a community development officer with the Island Institute’s Center for the Marine Economy. In other words, losing lobstering would make a town like Harpswell less like Harpswell.

Most lobstermen see the biggest threats coming from outsiders pursuing their own aims without regard for the lobstermen who live and work here. Those might be wind-power proponents, whale protectors, big businesses or homebuyers.

Few, if any, see climate change as an immediate or catastrophic threat, although they are deeply in tune with the changes happening in the Gulf of Maine and are worried about human impacts on the environment they depend on.

Read the full article at Harpswell Anchor 

LOUISIANA: Louisiana shrimpers launch petition to restrict imports

September 1, 2026 — Frustrated with decades of competition from cheaper, imported shrimp, shrimpers from Louisiana have launched a petition calling on the U.S. federal government to take action to restrict imports and better support domestic producers.

“The Louisiana Shrimp Association is asking fishermen, fishing families, seafood businesses, restaurants, consumers, and everyone who supports American jobs and American seafood to stand with us,” the association said in a 30 August Facebook post. “Our wild-caught shrimp industry is in crisis. American shrimp harvesters are struggling with unsustainable dockside prices while enormous volumes of imported shrimp continue to enter our country.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Mediocre Bristol Bay catch offset by soaring sockeye prices

August 31, 2026 — This summer’s Bristol Bay sockeye season concluded with a total catch of 29.3 million to 29.4 million fish as reported at press time, short of the government’s allowable harvest of 32.26 million. The total run reached 44.7 million fish, exceeding the forecast of 44.05 million; although this was 7 million fish above the seasonal average dating back to1963, it was well below the averages for the last decade and especially the record-run filled last five years.

Within these overall numbers, great variation in forecast and harvest results were evident among the reporting districts.

The two “Ns”, Nushagak and Naknek, were well down from the heady highs of recent years. Nushagak’s late opening (June 27) was set to allow a better upriver escapement of Nushagak king salmon, as the Nushagak kings were listed as a “stock of concern” in 2022 owing to declines. But as luck would have it, the sockeye run started early this year; Nushagak’s peak (mid-point) was July 1, meaning many fish came through before the fishery started. And this late opening no doubt played a role in the total catch (a bit over 9 million fish) falling well below the harvest forecast of 14 million. Naknek, meanwhile, saw its smallest run since 1998. However, other districts fared much better.

And at least some fishermen felt the lower catch this year was anticipated, and then higher prices saved the day.

“I was happy with this season’s catch, given the low return,” noted Peter Oswald, skipper of the Williwa, fishing Nushagak and then the Naknek-Kvichak. “A lot of guys were disappointed with their catches, but the lower catch allowed us to focus on catching the highest-quality fish, and the crew did well.

“Prices started out really strong and then got even stronger with the midseason price adjustment,” Oswald added.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

‘We’re facing a double whammy’: America’s hottest tinned fish snack is shrinking by nearly half thanks to climate change and war in Iran

August 31, 2026 — Tinned fish is having a real global moment. The pandemic-era pantry habit has since turned into restaurants nationwide serving tinned fish straight out of the can. Domestically, sales climbed from $2.3 billion in 2018 to more than $2.7 billion in 2024, and the U.S.’s obsession with sardines specifically is only accelerating: Americans bought $3.52 billion worth of shelf-stable seafood over the past year, and sardines have overtaken salmon as the second-most-popular canned fish behind tuna, as Grubhub reported orders of tinned fish tripled in 2025. The global tinned fish market was worth roughly $10.24 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $17.97 billion by 2034. Canned sardines are a meaningful part of that worldwide push.

But the supply behind that growing appetite is shrinking fast. Morocco, the world’s top sardine supplier, saw its fish landings fall nearly 46% between 2022 and 2024, and the reasons are feeding into each other. Because sardines are unusually sensitive to temperature, warming water as a result of climate change is pushing the fish into new territories farther away from fishermen.

The war in Iran, coupled with the effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz (through which one-fifth of the world’s global oil supply normally passes), is driving up fuel costs. Fishermen now need to go farther to catch the fish, just as it’s costing them that much more to travel longer distances, and they’re bringing back almost half the quantity as before.

Rashid Sumaila, a professor and Canada Research Chair in interdisciplinary ocean and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia, has spent his career studying fisheries and how they navigate geopolitical forces. He said the combination is something he hadn’t seen affect the fishing industry in quite this way before.

“Sardines are very sensitive to climate change, and we know it here on the Pacific Coast,” Sumaila told Fortune. “When it’s warm, sardines move from Mexico through the U.S., and Canadians see more sardines. They follow the temperature.”

He said Morocco’s sardines are shifting, too, and he saw the same thing while on a trip to Portugal this summer, when he left his hotel at 2 a.m. for an early flight and the temperature was still 34°C (91°F).

“Some of that 45% drop is partly climate change, and partly overfishing, and other things happening to the ocean,” he said. “There’s just so much. You have pollution, plastic. Stresses upon stresses.”

The Iran war adds a second layer. While Iran’s own waters are not a major sardine source, Sumaila said the war still reaches Moroccan boats through the price of fuel.

“The Iran war doesn’t quite impact this directly,” he said, “but indirectly it does, because prices are going up. The price of fishing, the vessels, the energy. It’s crazy.”

Since the conflict began, Brent crude surged 10% to 13% after the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to shipping this spring, an event the International Energy Agency called the largest oil-supply disruption in the market’s history. Sumaila said he heard the same complaint from fishermen thousands of miles from the Persian Gulf.

“Thai fishers are feeling it,” he said. “You can imagine Moroccan fishers, or fishers in Africa or the Pacific Islands, feeling it too.”

Read the full article at Fortune

House to take up bill extending right whale regulatory pause to 2035

August 31, 2026 — A bill that would extend the current pause on the new North Atlantic right whale regulations affecting the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries until 2035 is moving toward a vote in the U.S. House, with fishing industry groups renewing calls for lawmakers to pass the measure.

H.R. 9436, the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act, would extend the existing regulator pause from its current 2028 expiration to 2035. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Mike Lawler, R-New York, and Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine.

As National Fisherman reported in July, the House Natural Resources Committee advanced the bill in a bipartisan 22-13 vote on July 15. The committee has since formally reported the legislation, and it is moving toward consideration by the full House.

The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), one of several commercial fishing organizations supporting the extension, sent a letter to Congress ahead of the expected House consideration urging lawmakers to pass the bill.

“As H.R. 9436 comes before the full House, we respectfully ask you to support its passage and to help ensure that this bipartisan committee-supported legislation moves forward without delay,” NEFSA Vice President John Drouin wrote to Congress.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Maine lobster protected: Canada removes seafood from retaliatory tariffs

August 28, 2026 — Lobstermen in Maine breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday after Canada amended its retaliatory tariffs against the United States, removing seafood and fish products from the items that will face the new fee.

In an announcement late Wednesday night, Canada’s Department of Finance said the Canadian government was working with Canadian industries to assess the effectiveness of retaliatory tariffs. Based on feedback, the department said it made “select adjustments to protect against broader economic harms.”

Read the full article at WMTW

MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts pantry uses haddock chowder to stretch food budgets, and boost protein options

August 27, 2026 — For nearly 700 households that rely on the Family Pantry of Cape Cod each week, one item has emerged as a clear favorite: haddock chowder made with help from local fishermen. The popular meal also shows how a local partnership can stretch food budgets while getting a highly sought-after source of protein to families who need it most.

Here’s what to know

According to the Cape Cod Times, the most sought-after item at the Harwich-based Family Pantry of Cape Cod is frozen haddock chowder provided by the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.

Instead of operating like a standard food pickup site, the pantry allows clients to choose from a weekly printed list, similar to shopping at a small grocery. That list can include proteins as well as canned goods, cereal, pasta, eggs, and dairy items.

The alliance also provides clam chowder and fish stew, giving pantry clients more prepared seafood options to take home.

Read the full article at The Cool Down