Saving Seafood

Join Community Meetings to Discuss American Samoa’s Large Vessel Prohibited Area

August 3, 2026 — The following was released by the The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

The future of American Samoa’s fisheries depends on informed community voices.

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council will hold two public meetings to discuss the Large Vessel Prohibited Area, or LVPA, and hear directly from fishermen, families and island communities.

The LVPA is a federal zone around American Samoa where vessels 50 feet and longer are prohibited from fishing for tuna and other pelagic species. The Council is reviewing the current rules and boundaries under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and will consider community testimony as part of its discussions at its September meeting.

Join us for an open conversation, ask questions, share your experiences and make sure your perspective is part of the discussion.

Meeting Schedule:

● Tutuila LVPA Community Meeting

Date: August 6, 2026 (Thursday)

Time: 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (SST)

Location: Sadie’s by the Sea Conference Room, Utulei, Tutuila

● Manu’a LVPA Community Meeting

Date: August 7, 2026 (Friday)

Time: 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (SST)

Location: Fitiuta Lodge Fale, Fitiuta, Taʻu, Manuʻa

For more information, please contact Felix Penalosa (684-733-2754).

About the Council

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional councils established under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to manage fisheries in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The Council is responsible for developing and implementing fishery management plans for waters surrounding Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, the CNMI and U.S. Pacific Remote Island Areas. The Council works to promote sustainable fisheries, protect marine ecosystems and support the livelihoods of fishing communities through science-based decision-making and stakeholder engagement.

MAINE: Scientists have begun to re-deploy ocean monitoring equipment yanked from Pacific Northwest waters by the Trump administration in September.

August 3, 2026 — Every lobsterman expects to lose gear.

Strong tides, boat traffic, and tangled lines make losing lobster traps an unavoidable part of fishing Maine’s rugged coastline. But when those traps settle on the seafloor, they can impact marine life for years, creating problems for both the environment and the state’s most valuable fishery.

That’s why Buzz Scott has made it his mission to bring them back.

Scott has spent nearly two decades as a commercial fisherman off the Maine coast. While he still operates a lobster boat, much of his time is now dedicated to recovering abandoned traps as executive director of the nonprofit OceansWide.

Read the full article at News Center Maine

MASSACHUSETTS: Horseshoe crab populations hit record highs in Cape Cod waters after decades of protection

July 31, 2026 — Horseshoe crab populations in Massachusetts waters are reaching record highs, a sustained rebound that marine biologists attribute to decades of strict harvesting limits and expansive spawning protections.

According to July report from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), data from three distinct surveying methods show significant increases in the species’ abundance, reversing a downward trend that persisted until roughly 2010.

The decline that preceded the recovery alarmed wildlife managers because horseshoe crabs play a critical role in both the coastal ecosystem and modern medicine. According to Cape Cod National Seashore, the animals are harvested for bait in eel and whelk fisheries, while their blue blood is used to produce Limulus amebocyte lysate, a substance used to detect bacterial contamination in injectable drugs, vaccines and implantable medical devices.

Read the full article at MassLive

Industry groups launch US Shrimp Coalition to defend imports

July 31, 2026 — Multiple groups representing U.S. industries including the National Retail Federation and National Fisheries Institute have formed the U.S. Shrimp Coalition to advocate for retaining access to shrimp imports.

Announced on 31 July, the coalition said it was formed in response to increased effort to restrict shrimp imports in the U.S., though it did not name any specific effort.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Gulf partnerships shape the future of commercial fisheries

July 31, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries is highlighting decades of collaboration between commercial fishermen, state agencies and federal fishery managers as a driving force behind sustainable fisheries and stronger coastal economies in the Gulf of America, part of an eight-part series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. According to NOAA, the Gulf supports the nation’s second-largest commercial fishing revenue and a $20 billion annual fishing economy, with partnerships across the region helping balance commercial and recreational fisheries management.

The feature points to several examples of collaborative management, including improvements to fisheries data collection, joint fishery-independent surveys and coordinated efforts between NOAA Fisheries, the Gulf Fishery Management Council and Gulf states.

One example is the Gulf Fishery Independent Survey of Habitat and Ecosystem Resources (G-FISHER), launched through a partnership between NOAA Fisheries and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. Since standardizing survey methods in 2019, annual sampling has expanded from roughly 600 to 700 sites to approximately 2,000 sites each year. NOAA says the data have supported 37 stock assessments covering 20 species.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

EPA promotes flexibility for Tier IV implementation

July 31, 2026 — The flex at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) these days is flexibility, and the agency wants fishermen to know that they have options when it comes to meeting Tier IV requirements. When fishermen decide to build a new boat and need more power than the 803 horsepower limit on EPA Tier III engines, they can apply for a waiver that will allow them to install a higher horsepower Tier III engine.

“It’s on a case-by-case basis,” says EPA Region 1 administrator Mark Sanborn. “We work with the boat builder to see if the engine meets the waiver requirements.”

According to Sanborn, the rule change allowing Tier IV requirement waiver went into effect in 2020. “In June, the folks at Wesmac [Wesmac Custom Boats in Surry, Maine] contacted us about installing an exempt 1000-hp engine in a boat that they were building for a fisherman in Chatham, Massachusetts,” Sanborn explains that the EPA Implementation, Analysis and Compliance Division of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality looked at things like the vessel’s operating profile, the depth of its home harbor, the size of its holding tanks and the areas where the owner would be fishing, and made the determination that he was eligible for a waiver.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

New bill would block commercial red snapper sales whenever federal waters are closed to the public

July 30, 2026 — Anglers along the Crystal Coast and Outer Banks could soon see a major shift in federal fishing rules.

A new federal bill, the South Atlantic Red Snapper Fair Access Act, would fix what local fishermen call a broken system. Right now, North Carolina recreational anglers are locked into tiny, one- or two-day seasons, while commercial harvesting continues for months.

Read the full article at PRE

Chinook salmon in decline, worsened by Bering Sea heatwave a decade ago: study

July 30, 2026 — Yukon River Chinook salmon numbers have been in a decline for decades. Despite efforts to help the population recover, it has dropped nearly 90 per cent since the 1980s.

Now, a new study from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says a four-year heatwave in the Bering Sea that started about a decade ago has been connected to a more recent drop in population.

Curry Cunningham, one of the co-authors of the study and an associate professor with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said researchers have noticed two periods of decline in the Chinook salmon population between 2003 and 2023.

Cunningham said before 2013, the salmon experienced a short decline followed by a few years of recovery.

But by 2016, conditions started to change again.

“That’s led to this very depressed state we currently find ourselves in,” Cunningham said. “[It] seems to be associated in time, at least with the onset of this marine heat wave that we saw in the eastern Bering Sea.”

Read the full article at CBC News

ALASKA: Kuskokwim Bay commercial salmon fishery opens after 5-year hiatus

July 30, 2026 — Dozens of ocean-going skiffs have been busy unfurling gill nets along the shores of Kuskokwim Bay. But the catches haven’t been headed to fish camps. Instead, the salmon are quickly bled, put on ice, and offloaded onto vessels bobbing in the waters in front of Quinhagak and Goodnews Bay.

If the fishery is successful, an at-sea processor with hundreds of thousands of pounds of frozen, mostly sockeye, salmon will return to Washington state to bring the catch to market.

According to Larry Strunk, a founding member of the Independent Fishermen of Quinhagak Cooperative, local permit holders could earn upwards of $15,000 each by fishing the openers.

“We have some fishermen that have already been paid over $10,000 this month,” Strunk said.

But as of July 28, Strunk said that diminishing sockeye numbers and logistical issues have spelled the end of this year’s fishery, just three weeks after the Alaska Department of Fish and Game opened it.

Read the full article at KYUK

NOAA Fisheries highlights challenges in applying MMPA to foreign fisheries, seeks suggestions

July 30, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries recently said a law requiring it to ban imports from foreign fisheries that don’t align with U.S. marine mammal protections has been a useful tool in reducing bycatch but admitted it is very difficult to execute.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) has long required U.S. commercial fishers to take steps to reduce marine mammal bycatch, but a similar requirement to ban imports from foreign fisheries that do not take action to reduce marine mammal bycatch has not been consistently enforced. Amid growing pressure from conservation groups, in 2016, NOAA Fisheries finalized a rule laying out how it would assess those foreign fisheries. Under the rule, NOAA Fisheries would conduct a comparability finding for every single foreign fishery to ensure it met U.S. standards for protecting marine mammals and reducing bycatch. Those denied a comparability finding would be banned from exporting their products to U.S. markets.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource