Saving Seafood

Six Fish These Small Sound-Emitting Tags Are Helping Save

November 5, 2026 — An app tells beachgoers in Massachusetts and Maine if a shark has entered the area. Fishermen in Delaware check their phones to avoid accidentally catching endangered Atlantic sturgeon. Dwindling American shad, once cut off from their spawning grounds by dams, are returning in droves.

Each of these stories became possible in part because of tiny “acoustic telemetry” tags and a vast network of researchers deploying them along the East Coast of the U.S. With acoustic telemetry technology, each tag emits a unique, ultrasonic “ping.”  Along the Eastern seaboard, thousands of electronic receivers are listening for those pings, ready to detect any tagged animal that swims within about half a kilometer.

Researchers in the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry Network, or “ACT” for short, have been tagging animals for over two decades. Now managed by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, the network unites scientists from over 120 organizations from Maine to North Carolina. Together, they’ve tagged more than 17,000 animals and 92 species. By sharing data from all of their receivers, they’re making discoveries about animal movement no single team could have made on their own.

“Many fish migrate long distances,” says Matt Ogburn, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). “The ACT Network supports researchers by making it easy and efficient to exchange data across projects as the fish they tagged move along the coast or even across oceans.”

This fall the network published a new paper, its first to highlight  how acoustic telemetry is shaping real-world conservation. From sturgeon to sharks (a lot of sharks), here are six fish the ACT scientists and their tags are helping preserve.

Read the full article at Smithsonian Magazine

ALASKA: ‘Sloppy is the way I would describe this approach’: Unknown plans for an underwater data center in Cook Inlet

October 29, 2026 — A new player in Alaska, DeepGreen Cook Inlet SPV, has proposed a first in the state: an underwater data center.

It seems to have come as a surprise to some and has sparked major concerns about a lack of regulations for data centers by the state and possible environmental impacts, such as to the endangered Cook Inlet Beluga.

“Sloppy is the way I would describe this approach at this stage in the game,” Mayor Peter Micciche of Kenai Peninsula Borough said.

He says he hasn’t gotten an email, letter or a phone call from DeepGreen.

Read the full article at KTUU

Underwater data centers may be coming to the U.S.—smack in the middle of endangered whale habitat

October 27, 2026 — The battle over where to put data centers is heading below the waves: the Trump administration is considering proposals to build two massive underwater data centers off the country’s coast. The sites selected for the projects—one in Cook Inlet, Alaska, and one in the Gulf of Maine—are smack in the middle of two endangered whale populations’ habitats.

Whales are “skittish animals,” says Arial Brewer, a beluga researcher at the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “A massive-scale project like this could really stress them out in a lot of different ways.”

Data centers, with their thousands of servers, generate considerable heat that can damage equipment if not offset in some way. Land-based facilities use massive amounts of fresh water to cool down. By putting a data center underwater, the ocean can easily dispel that heat. “Cooling is a large part of what a data center costs to run, and seawater is a free sink,” says Vishal Misra, a computer scientist and professor at Columbia University.

Read the full article at the Scientific American

Trump admin reignites battle over salmon, dams in Columbia River

October 21, 2026 — The federal government sparred with conservationists before a Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday in an effort to overturn an injunction in a long-running case concerning salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin in the Pacific Northwest.

“After a quarter century of judicial intervention, it’s time to return control of the Columbia River system to the federal agencies that Congress entrusted with that extremely complex task,” said Jacob Ecker, Justice Department attorney, referring to the operation of the 14 federal dams on the river.

The lawsuit over fish conditions began in 2001 and had reached an agreement until the Trump administration in June 2025 abruptly withdrew from the Biden-era 2023 Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, which promised to spend $1 billion to protect endangered steelhead and salmon.

The agreement was the result of a deal struck with Oregon, Washington, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and the National Wildlife Federation, after they had proposed the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative.

Under the agreement, the government committed to immediate measures to protect salmon, along with a decadelong plan to manage hydropower operations while meeting rising energy needs.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

Environmental group sues for records related to Trump administration’s ESA rollbacks

October 20, 2026 — The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has sued the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump after the government failed to provide public documents related to its decision to rescind the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The lawsuit follows the U.S. Department of the Interior’s July decision to roll back the definition of “harm” in the ESA to no longer take into account modifications and degradation of habitat in protecting endangered species. In announcing the change, the Trump administration said incorporating those habitat considerations was a result of federal overreach and the definition in place for roughly 40 years had been used to unnecessarily stifle economic development.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Endangered southern resident orca population increases by 2 whales in latest census

October 15, 2026 —  The endangered southern resident killer whale population has grown for the second year in a row, offering a bit of encouraging news for the orcas that frequent Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.

The Center for Whale Research (CWR) announced Monday that its annual census counted 76 living southern resident killer whales, an increase of two from the previous year.

Researchers documented four births during the census period, although only two calves survived to the July 1 census date.

Read the full article at KMTR

MSC begins 60-day consultation on improvements to its Fisheries Program

October 8, 2026 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is seeking feedback on proposed revisions to its Fisheries Program. The revisions are designed to maintain the rigour of the MSC’s environmental sustainability requirements, whilst making them clearer and more practical to apply during assessments.

The public consultation begins on Thursday, 8 October and will remain open for feedback until Tuesday, 8 December. All stakeholders can review the proposed revisions and provide feedback through an online survey.

The MSC Fisheries Standard sets the leading benchmark for environmentally sustainable fishing globally and it is vital that its requirements drive real and lasting progress towards ending overfishing and protecting biodiversity. The proposals include clarifying requirements, removing undue complexity, and streamlining processes to ensure assessment outcomes are more consistent.

Key revisions include:

  • Endangered, threatened and protected (ETP) species: More appropriate classifications based on conservation status, and more rigorous assessment of fisheries’ impacts on ETP species.
  • Independent observation: Requirements for human or electronic observation revised to align with widely used global best practice, based on independent analysis.
  • Traceability requirements: Strengthening the traceability of certified seafood throughout the supply chain.

Other revisions relate to evaluating the accuracy of information provided in assessments, the requirements for the adoption of harvest control strategies in non-tuna fisheries, refining scoring for fisheries that target the same stock, and clarifying how fisheries with limited data should be assessed.

The revisions have been developed through collaboration between the MSC, fishery assessors, and representatives from fisheries and eNGOs. Three dedicated panels have been created to propose changes to requirements, test the proposals, and analyse their impacts. A comprehensive feedback system between the panels will ensure the proposed changes deliver the intended sustainability outcomes on the water and can be consistently applied.

The MSC Fisheries Standard v3.1, Fisheries Certification Process v3.1, and Fisheries Standard Toolbox v1.2 are all included in the review. There will be an additional 30-day public consultation on the final proposals, which is expected to take place in April 2027. Version 4 of the Standard is expected to be published in September 2027 and will come into effect six months after the publication date.

Amanda Stern-Pirlot, MSC’s Chief Standards Officer said: “The MSC highly values input from its stakeholders to help shape the Fisheries Standard.  We encourage anyone with an interest in or knowledge of the Standard to take part in the consultation. We have introduced new tools to make participation in the consultation easier, and local MSC representatives are ready to help to make sure all input is heard. This input is vital to ensure the Standard and certification scheme continue to reflect widely adopted global best practice and can be efficiently and consistently applied.”

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

Bipartisan fisheries management law would expand eDNA use

September 1, 2026 — Bipartisan legislation introduced this month by the co-chairs of the U.S. Senate Oceans Caucus relies on environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques pioneered by Cornell researcher David Lodge, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and past director of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

The Fisheries Science Modernization Act would direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to incorporate eDNA tools into their assessment surveys of fish stocks – assessments that inform how many fish can be harvested by commercial and recreational fishers. Eight Republican, Democratic and independent senators co-sponsor the legislation, and multiple fishing industry and environmental protection organizations support it.

“When I started testing eDNA 17 years ago, I was interested in detecting rare species, such as emerging invasive species and endangered species,” Lodge said. “The focus of this legislation is quite different. Here, it’s not just about detecting whether a Pacific hake exists, it’s about estimating how many hake there are, based on how many distinct pieces of hake DNA you can find. It’s pretty astonishing to me that we in the scientific world working on eDNA have come this far, this fast.”

Read the full article at the Cornell Chronicle 

Dams give way to better habitat in Chesapeake Bay region

September 1, 2026 — A few years ago, biologist Brian Watson was looking for endangered mussels in Virginia’s Rock Island Creek when his assistant went around a bend and made a startling discovery. It wasn’t a rare mussel.

“There’s, like … a stone wall,” she shouted back to Watson. Then added, “That’s a dam.”

Standing 6 feet tall and stretching 55 feet across the creek, the dam was entirely unknown to them — appearing nowhere on maps or dam inventories.

But the dam wasn’t irrelevant to their project: It was taking a toll on mussels, as so many dams do. The biologists found shells of dead James River spinymussels, an endangered species, behind the structure.

“We assumed the mussels probably got washed down to the dam and then died as they got trapped,” said Watson, a mussel specialist for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, noting that the sandy substrate and water depth behind the structure was unsuitable habitat.

It was one of more than 6,500 dams that dot more than 200,000 miles of waterways draining the Chesapeake Bay watershed. That’s an undercount. Many of them don’t appear on dam inventories. Research was required to learn that the one on Rock Island Creek was called the Baber’s Mill Dam, built in the early 1800s.

Large or small, dams create a host of problems. They alter habitat, block fish movement, change water temperatures, promote algal blooms and contribute to the decline of native species. Some are safety threats to people.

But the Baber’s Mill Dam no longer causes such problems.

By chance, an aquatic ecologist from the timber company Weyerhaeuser, which owned the property, contacted Watson about the dam a few months later. The state and company teamed up to remove the structure in April 2024.

Read the full article at Bay Journal