Saving Seafood

Greens see chance to protect species in ‘God Squad’ fight

April 14, 2026 — The Trump administration’s move to exempt oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico from endangered species considerations could hand environmentalists a public engagement opportunity, although one they would prefer not to have.

The use of the so-called God Squad last month to grant a more than 600,000-square-mile exemption for the oil industry puts the spotlight on the kind of charismatic species — whales and sea turtles — that not only conservationists but the general public hold dear. In particular, it highlights the plight of the Rice’s whale, which has only a few dozen of its kind left.

“This action by the Trump administration may prove to be a galvanizing moment for a whole new generation of advocates and voters who support the Endangered Species Act and the wildlife and ecosystems it protects,” said Ben Greuel, national wildlife campaign manager at the Sierra Club.

Read the full article at E&E News

MAINE: The Fragile Hope for Salmon Recovery in Maine

March 30, 2026 — On a bright March morning, Paul Christman hiked through deep snowdrifts on the bank of Avon Valley Brook in the western Maine mountains, leading a crew wearing waders and shouldering unwieldy backpacks.

One crew member carried a pack basket loaded with battered funnels crafted from stovepipes, duct tape and plumbing pipes. Another lugged a water pump. The last brought a cooler full of thousands of fertilized Atlantic salmon eggs.

The stream was mostly iced over, but Mr. Christman, a marine scientist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, found some open water on the brook, a tributary to the Sandy River.

“This is a really good spot,” Mr. Christman said. “The river is picking up velocity and shoving that water into the gravel, so we’re going to set up right here and do it.”

For 20 years, Mr. Christman has been working to restore salmon to this Sandy River watershed, where they were eradicated after dams built in the 1800s blocked their passage.

The strategy is producing thousands of juvenile salmon that migrate to the North Atlantic, but just a handful that return to Maine to spawn as adults.

Now, a $300 million project to remove or modify four dams downstream on the Kennebec River is infusing the work with new hope, possibly clearing the way for salmon to swim freely up to the Sandy River within a decade.

Hundreds of thousands of Atlantic salmon once flooded rivers in New England. For millenniums, the fish have been valued by Native Americans in the region as sustenance and cultural touchstones.

But marine survival rates for Atlantic salmon have plummeted over the last 35 years, for reasons that are complex and interwoven, including changing prey, shifting currents and warming waters.

More recently, they’ve been regarded by anglers as the “king of fish.” But by 2000, their numbers had fallen so low that federal regulators listed them for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Early recovery efforts focused on the last remaining populations of Atlantic salmon in the United States, all in Maine, in the Penobscot River, and the Mid-coast and Down East regions.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Amending turtle protection laws proposed to permit cultural use

March 30, 2026 — For decades the green sea turtle has been protected under the Endangered Species Act, but with the populations now recovering, members of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council resurrected conversations on restoring culturally important sea turtle harvesting during its recent meeting in Hawaii.

At the heart of the conversation is the long-overdue question, “What recovery could mean not only for conservation, but also for the possible return of cultural stewardship and sustainable use in the Western Pacific?” according to a release from the council.

The council recognized that the green sea turtle, although protected, also has played a role in cultures of the Western Pacific.

Read the full article at The Guam Daily Post

Rice’s whale faces extinction risk as ‘God Squad’ considers oil exemption

March 27, 2026 — On March 31, the “God Squad” of endangered species in the U.S. will convene for the first time in more than 30 years

They will discuss whether to exempt oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico from Endangered Species Act protections—a move that could make the Rice’s Whale extinct, activists claim.

But the U.S. Government says the move is needed for national security purposes.

Read the full article at AL.com

Center for Biological Diversity to sue NOAA Fisheries over horseshoe crab decision

March 25, 2026 —  The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has notified NOAA Fisheries of its intent to sue the agency after it denied a petition to list horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“Horseshoe crabs watched the dinosaurs come and go, but now they face their greatest threat yet: us,” CBD Senior Attorney Danny Waltz said in a release. “Fortunately, we also have the power to save horseshoe crabs by protecting them under the Endangered Species Act.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Bipartisan ESA reform evolves in Senate

March 20, 2026 — Bipartisan opportunities exist for updating the Endangered Species Act, lawmakers and witnesses agreed at a notably even-keeled Senate panel hearing Wednesday.

Forgoing the rhetorical fireworks that sometimes light up ESA discussions, the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife hearing suggested at least the possibility of legislative compromise.

That’s a sharp contrast to developments in the House, where Republicans are moving forward with a proposed overhaul that many Democrats have blasted as little more than an industry wishlist.

Read the full article at E&E News

Administration to Convene ‘God Squad’ With Power to Override Environmental Law

March 18, 2026 — The Trump administration plans to convene the so-called God Squad, a high-level federal panel that has the power to override protections under the Endangered Species Act, for a meeting related to oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

The meeting, scheduled for March 31, will be the first time in three decades that the group, officially called the Endangered Species Committee, will gather.

Notice of the meeting was released on Friday and officially published in the Federal Register on Monday. The Gulf, which the administration calls the Gulf of America, is home to the critically endangered Rice’s whale, a species that exists nowhere else. According to the latest available federal estimates, around 50 of the animals remain on Earth.

Information in the notice announcing the meeting, called by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, is sparse.

“The Committee is meeting regarding an exemption under the Endangered Species Act with respect to oil and gas exploration, development, and production activities in the Gulf of America associated with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Program,” the notice states.

When emailed for additional information on what had prompted the move, the Interior Department declined to directly answer questions and repeated the published information. But President Trump has wanted the God Squad to convene since he returned to office last year.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Feds deny ESA protections for crabs with blood used by humans

February 20, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries has denied Endangered Species Act protections for the Atlantic horseshoe crab, a lumbering species whose unique blood is highly valued by the biomedical industry.

Faced with two petitions that urged designating the species as either threatened or endangered, the federal agency instead concluded no ESA listing was warranted.

“There has been improvement in the population status and trends of regional populations from New Hampshire to Florida-Atlantic, with the exception of New York,” NOAA Fisheries announced this week, adding that “the petitions rely on obsolete and incorrect information to infer the current status and trends of the species.”

Read the full article at E&E News

WASHINGTON: NOAA Fisheries denies ESA petition for Washington coast spring-run Chinook salmon

February 20, 2026 — More than two and a half years after a petition was filed, NOAA Fisheries has determined that spring-run Chinook salmon on the Washington coast are not a distinct group from their fall-run counterparts and don’t warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

“NMFS has independently reviewed the best available scientific and commercial information,” NOAA Fisheries stated in a post on the Federal Register. “NMFS concludes that Chinook salmon spring-run populations on the Washington coast do not meet the definition of a species.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource