Saving Seafood

Menhaden fisheries along East Coast face further harvest restrictions

November 12, 2026 — Seeking to balance ecological and economic needs, East Coast fishery managers have decided to curb the commercial menhaden harvest along the Atlantic coast by 17% over the next two years — far less than what conservationists demanded but much more than what commercial fishers wanted.

Meeting in Newport, RI, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted Nov. 10 to cut the allowable coastwide catch by 9% in 2027 and by another 9% in 2028. The move was portrayed as a compromise to help struggling Atlantic striped bass and maybe ospreys without putting New England lobstermen and Virginia’s menhaden fleet out of business.

Menhaden are fatty fish that serve as food for other fish and wildlife, including ospreys and striped bass. Environmentalists worry that the declines in these predators are due to a decline of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay, which has only been documented through fishermen harvest totals.

Menhaden also serve as lobster and crab bait for commercial fisheries from Maine to the Carolinas. The East Coast harvest is dwarfed, though, by the menhaden fishery in the Chesapeake Bay. Omega Protein, based in Reedville, VA, and its fishing partner Ocean Harvesters catch tens of thousands of tons of menhaden annually to pulverize or “reduce” them into fish oil and fish meal.

Read the full article at the Bay Journal

ALASKA: Alaska seafood harvesting jobs rise 4% after five years of declines

November 10, 2026 — Alaska’s commercial fishing industry recorded its largest increase in seafood harvesting employment in more than a decade in 2025, reversing five consecutive years of job losses as stronger salmon harvests, recovering crab fisheries, and increased groundfish activity helped bring more fishermen back to work.

According to the November 2026 edition of Alaska Economic Trends, published by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, seafood harvesting employment increased 4 percent in 2025, adding an average of 216 jobs per month compared with 2024.

The increase marked a turnaround for an industry that had lost approximately 2,300 jobs since 2019, with harvesting employment reaching its lowest level on record in 2024. Despite the improvement, the state’s commercial fishing workforce remains considerably smaller than it was a decade ago.

State economist Joshua Warren, who authored the report, told KUCB that the industry’s prolonged decline was driven partly by the COVID-19 pandemic, along with fishery closures and reduced catch limits.

“Other industries saw some level of return once COVID measures stopped, but those trends just seemed to continue for seafood harvesting,” Warren said.

Closures of major Bering Sea crab fisheries, including snow crab and red king crab, contributed to the losses. However, some fisheries reopened in 2025, and stronger salmon production helped support the industry’s recovery.

“And we had a good salmon year, so there wasn’t a negative pressure that would cause things to continue to decrease,” Warren said.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Satellite tagging offering NOAA better understanding of red king crab migration patterns

November 3, 2026 — Research led by NOAA Fisheries found that red king crab migrations off the coast of Alaska are impacted by environmental factors, implying that regulators need more flexible tools to effectively manage the species.

In order to research why red king crab populations in Bristol Bay, Alaska, U.S.A. were migrating at certain times of year, researchers conducted satellite tagging research from the late spring of 2021 to the fall of 2024.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Satellite Tags Reveal Red King Crab Migrations Are Linked to Environmental Conditions

October 30, 2026 — The Bristol Bay red king crab fishery was once one of the largest and most valuable crab fisheries in the world, but it collapsed in the early 1980s. Managers established closure areas to help the population rebound, but the boundaries of these closure areas are fixed and cannot adapt to changing environmental conditions and shifting crab distributions. Previous research has documented northward movements of the Bristol Bay red king crab population. Changes in their seasonal migration patterns may limit the effectiveness of static closure areas like the Red King Crab Savings Area.

In response to this pressing management need, a new satellite tagging study tracked and modeled movements of mature male red king crab in Bristol Bay from late spring through the fall during 2021–2024. The research team’s “movement models” predicted that red king crab generally moved to the west or southwest by the fall—into deeper and cooler areas in central Bristol Bay. In years with warmer bottom water temperatures, crab moved further west. The model’s predictions were validated by commercial catches from the fall Bristol Bay red king crab fishery and researchers are currently applying this approach to other seasons.

Future applications in the winter and spring may provide important insights about movements during mating and molting. These are the times of the year when the crab are more vulnerable. This information will help fishery managers evaluate current closure area boundaries and inform future boundary changes that may be needed to better align with present and projected seasonal migration patterns.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

ALASKA: Alaska Fisheries Science Center attributes hybrid snow-Tanner crab boom to marine heatwave, decreased competition and predation

October 29, 2026 — Scientists at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Kodiak Laboratory recently completed research on how certain hybrid crab populations have increased in Alaska’s Bering Sea following a marine heatwave and subsequent mass die-off events from 2018 to 2019.

“These results are unprecedented,” study lead Erin Fedewa said in a NOAA release. “We were shocked by the magnitude of the hybrid surge while analyzing data from the 2025 Eastern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey. It immediately became clear that this ecological response would ripple through to fisheries management.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Rise of hybrid crabs raises questions for Bering Sea management

October 22, 2026 — A surge in hybrid crabs in the Bering Sea is raising new questions about how federal regulators count crab populations and set harvest limits, according to new Kodiak-based research.

The study, “A Bering Sea marine heatwave triggers unprecedented crab hybridization, challenging fisheries management,” was authored by Erin Fedewa, Emily Ryznar, Connor Cleary and Mike Litzow at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center Kodiak Lab, and published Monday in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Read the full article at the Kodiak Daily Mirror