Saving Seafood

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

CALIFORNIA: California commercial fishers, conservationists join forces to reduce whale entanglements

October 27, 2026 — Conservation groups have joined forces with California’s commercial fishers in a new partnership aimed at protecting whales while keeping the state’s Dungeness crab fishery open.

“California’s commercial fishermen have a long history of finding solutions to challenges on the water,” Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) Executive Director Lisa Damrosch said in a release. “This partnership brings that experience together with some of the best minds in science and conservation, with fishermen at the table from the very beginning. Together, we have an opportunity to find a better balance between protecting whales and sustaining a healthy, viable Dungeness crab fishery.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

UNH leading effort to strengthen U.S. seafood supply through aquaculture

October 27, 2026 — Do you know where your seafood comes from? According to NOAA, roughly 80% of the seafood Americans eat is imported.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire are leading a major new effort aimed at growing more seafood domestically through sustainable aquaculture.

Just a quarter mile off the coast of New Castle, UNH researchers are raising steelhead trout in a floating sea farm known as an Aquafort. It’s become a model for studying ways to make seafood production more sustainable.

“We are growing fish at a very small community scale for the purpose of supplementing the seafood markets within the local area. So, the difference between wild-caught fish and aquaculture fish are hatched from eggs Our fish are actually hatched at a local New Hampshire hatchery up in Ossipee,” said David Fredriksson, director of UNH’s Center for Sustainable Seafood Systems.

About 4,000 steelhead trout are taken to the floating pen, where they’re raised for several months before harvest. The fish share the pen with sugar kelp and mussels. Researchers say those species act as natural biofilters, helping recycle nutrients and maintain balance within the ecosystem. The approach, known as integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, is designed to make seafood farming more environmentally sustainable by raising multiple species together.

Read the full article at NBC Boston

How Northeastern is helping shellfishers and diners of a New England speciality

October 26, 2026 —

It was a beautiful morning on the Parker River.

The sun peeked through the clouds from the previous weekend’s nor’easter, giving the golden marsh grasses an extra autumnal sheen.

Frenetic yellow-legged shorebirds took flight as the small boat navigated the curves of the meandering river, and even the looming Route One bridge could not mar the pastoral scene, as little traffic passed after the motor was cut and the boat drifted along the shoreline.

Unfortunately, Northeastern University graduate student Grace Abe was not exactly enjoying her surroundings. She had just sunk up to her knees in mud.

“I had it too easy with the first one,” Abe said, while prying a wooden box out of the mud.

The container that emerged was 1-foot-square and several-inches tall, made primarily of wood composite with a mesh screen on its top and landscaping fabric on its bottom.

It did not look too high-tech. In fact, it looked like it might contain a small pizza.

But for the last six months, the Beal Box – named after its inventor, University of Maine marine ecologist Brian Beal – had been sitting in the mud flat and acting as a nursery for an iconic and delicious New England species, the soft-shell clam.

“The soft-shell clam has been a staple fishery in New England for generations,” said David Kimbro, associate professor of marine and environmental sciences at Northeastern.

But the species is under pressure.

Read the full article at Northeastern Global News

CALIFORNIA: New partnership aims to reduce whale entanglements in California Dungeness crab fishery

October 26, 2026 — A new partnership of marine scientists, commercial fishermen, and conservationists aims to reduce whale entanglements in California’s Dungeness crab fishery while supporting the state’s fishing industry, a press release issued Thursday noted.

The Dungeness Crab and Whale Conservation Collaborative, announced by The Marine Mammal Center, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and The Nature Conservancy, is backed by a three-year grant from the Clean Break Fund.

The initiative will combine data from vessel surveys, drones, shore-based observations, underwater acoustic gliders, and satellite-based whale detections to improve understanding of whale movements and behavior.

Read the full article at NBC Bay Area

Collaboration with Fishing Industry Contributes to Successful Longfin Squid Assessment

October 26, 2026 — Longfin squid is an economically important species that is challenging to study. Mostly caught from Rhode Island to New Jersey, it supports a commercial fishery worth approximately $32.5 million in 2024. It is often found on restaurant menus as calamari.

Longfin squid live less than a year, grow rapidly, and the number of young entering the population is highly variable. Their populations are influenced by dynamic ocean conditions, leading to shifts in abundance and distribution that are challenging to understand or predict. Longfin squid migrate with the seasons, generally moving south and offshore in the late fall and returning north and inshore during the spring. Scientific surveys capture seasonal snapshots of the population but they cannot provide specifics about the squid caught in the fishery.

Successful Research Track Peer Review

In August 2026, an independent panel of scientists completed the peer review for the Longfin Inshore Squid Research Track Assessment. The panel approved two new assessment models—both of which met all required Terms of Reference and were deemed suitable for management advice. These models mark a significant technical advancement over past index-based approaches. They are better able to capture the rapid growth, seasonal changes in abundance, and unique biology of this short-lived species.

This major accomplishment for a historically data-poor species was possible because of strong collaboration between scientists and commercial fishing industry partners. Having a better foundational understanding of longfin squid life history, as well as two distinct and credible models, gives managers greater flexibility and confidence in using the best available science. The review marks an important milestone in the multi-year effort to improve our understanding of longfin squid and develop better tools to assess the stock. The findings will be implemented during the upcoming Longfin Squid Management Track Assessment this fall.

We combined analytical expertise of scientists with on-the-water knowledge of fishermen who encounter this species throughout the year, making great strides together toward better understanding this economically important and enigmatic species.

“The foundation of trust and collaboration between the science and fishing communities was critical to the scientific progress made during the longfin squid assessment. From sharing ecological observations to collecting data to providing input on model assumptions and outputs, industry partners played a critical role in all phases of the assessment,” shared Dr. Anna Mercer, chief of the center’s Northeast Cooperative Research branch.

The goals of the collaboration are:

  • Better science for sustainable management
  • Better information to support decisions about how much seafood can make its way from the ocean to our tables

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Deepwater species in the Gulf of Mexico declined drastically after Deepwater Horizon oil spill

October 23, 2026 — Deepwater fish, shellfish, and squid populations in the Gulf of Mexico dropped significantly following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and have yet to recover 16 years later, according to a new study.

“Our findings are particularly concerning because these are species that are abundant, widespread, and historically might not have been considered vulnerable,” Florida International University (FIU) marine researcher Pedro Peres said in a release. “What we are seeing suggests that even species that appear abundant can experience substantial changes that may go unnoticed without monitoring.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

TRCP Misrepresented Key Menhaden Facts on the Tom Rowland Podcast

October 23, 2026 — The following was released by the American Small Pelagics Network:

Jaclyn Lunaas and Chris Macaluso of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership gave listeners a materially misleading account of menhaden science and management across both the Atlantic and Gulf fisheries. This ranges from Atlantic menhaden and Chesapeake Bay issues to Gulf menhaden in the Gulf of Mexico, along with claims involving striped bass, osprey, red drum, spotted seatrout, king mackerel, tarpon and other species. Host Tom Rowland largely accepted their claims rather than testing them against readily available fisheries data and the published record of the relevant management agencies. The result was a discussion in which advocacy was repeatedly presented as settled science.

Lunaas said scientists had been overestimating coastwide biomass by about 40% and implied the catch limit had therefore been “way too high.” But the ASMFC says the revision primarily reflected a new estimate of natural mortality that rescaled the historical population; it was not a 40% population collapse. Total biomass “has actually slightly increased since 2021,” and Atlantic menhaden remain not overfished, with overfishing not occurring .

Lunaas and Macaluso also misrepresented the claim that ASMFC scientists “recommended a 50% cut” in the coastwide menhaden harvest. The ASMFC’s Menhaden Technical Committee and ERP Work Group analysis shows that the Board asked scientists to model a range of catch scenarios and calculate the risk of exceeding the Ecological Reference Point (ERP) target and threshold. A reduction of roughly 50% or more was one modeled scenario, not a singular scientific recommendation. The target is a conservative objective below the threshold that defines overfishing. The Board adopted a 20% reduction for 2026 , projected to have a 0% chance of exceeding the ERP overfishing threshold in 2026 . Calling a 50% reduction simply “what the science said” misstates both the process and the result.

The episode’s “running out of food” premise also omitted a central ASMFC finding: the ERP framework already incorporates predator needs, and even ending all Atlantic menhaden fishing would not, by itself, rebuild striped bass to their biomass target . Sustainable recreational and commercial striped bass fishing mortality remains necessary. Maryland’s newest data further undercut the simple food-shortage narrative: the 2026 juvenile striped bass survey recorded an eighth consecutive year of below-average striped bass reproduction while finding young Atlantic menhaden in abundance and Atlantic silversides at their highest level in more than a decade. Menhaden indices for 2023-2026 were 3.78, 3.66, 2.54 and 2.49; every one exceeded every annual index from 1992 through 2022, and the four-year average was the highest since 1988-1991.

The osprey discussion blurred observation and causation. The 2026 peer-reviewed osprey study found serious reproductive deficits and food stress in higher-salinity areas and identified reduced menhaden availability as a primary driver there, but it did not establish that commercial menhaden harvest caused that reduced availability. USGS is continuing research on the relationship among menhaden availability, osprey reproduction, commercial harvest and environmental conditions. Food stress is not proof of fishery causation.

Macaluso likewise emphasized approximately 140-160 million non-target fish, roughly 30,000 red drum and about 250,000 spotted seatrout without the proportional context. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries reported total bycatch of about 3.6% of catch by weight in the 2024 study. Over 2015-2024, menhaden fishery dead bycatch accounted for 9.9% of red drum fishery removals by weight and 2.7% of spotted seatrout removals, with directed fisheries accounting for the overwhelming majority. Raw totals without those denominators give a distorted picture of the study.

Macaluso also claimed that rebuilding Gulf king mackerel requires leaving 40% more menhaden in the water, while Rowland asserted that tarpon migrating from South Florida to Louisiana “have to have” menhaden. The peer-reviewed Gulf ecosystem model does not support that 40% prescription: its king-mackerel ERP target was 0.964 of 2016 menhaden fishing mortality, and NOAA currently lists the Gulf king mackerel stock as not overfished and not subject to overfishing. The model includes tarpon among many predators of juvenile menhaden, but it does not establish Rowland’s claim that tarpon migrate to Louisiana because food is insufficient off Key West. Newer Gulf diet research likewise found nearshore predators to be generalists using a diverse prey base, with no single menhaden-dependent predator.

Macaluso also called the slower pace of catching the Virginia quota “a pretty clear indication there’s something wrong with that population.” That is not a stock assessment. The ASMFC says its coastwide model cannot determine menhaden stock status within Chesapeake Bay or provide quantitative advice on separate Bay and ocean harvest levels. Those are precisely the questions additional research is intended to answer. Management should establish the problem, connect it to the fishery and show that a proposed restriction would improve the outcome before imposing additional costs on working families.

Rowland should have challenged these claims: whether the 40% revision was an actual population decline; whether 50% was a recommendation or one modeled scenario; what the ASMFC’s striped-bass model says; whether the osprey research established harvest causation; and what Macaluso’s Gulf bycatch figures mean in proportion. He did not. Lunaas and Macaluso are free to advocate for lower quotas, different allocations and additional restrictions, but nobody has the right to mislead the public about what the science says.

Nobody has a more direct stake in healthy Chesapeake Bay, Gulf and Atlantic fisheries than the people whose livelihoods depend on them. UFCW Local 400 has put the fishermen themselves on record ; the NAACP Virginia State Conference has urged Virginia’s governor to protect working families while state-funded science is completed; and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference has warned that these decisions affect African American workers, union families and rural communities. Their future depends on healthy fisheries just as surely as their jobs do. The debate should rest on the complete scientific record, not selective claims presented as settled fact.

Sources

• Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 1032 – show notes and transcript

• ASMFC – Atlantic Menhaden FAQs

• ASMFC – 2025 Atlantic Menhaden Stock Assessment Update

• ASMFC – Atlantic Menhaden species page

• ASMFC – Technical Committee and ERP Work Group Report on Stock Projections to Inform 2026-2028 TAC Levels

• ASMFC – Atlantic Menhaden Board Proceedings, October 2025

• ASMFC – Atlantic Menhaden FAQ, Question 13 on striped bass rebuilding

• Maryland DNR – 2026 Juvenile Striped Bass Survey Results

• Maryland DNR – Juvenile Striped Bass Survey methods and data

• Maryland DNR – Atlantic Menhaden Baywide Juvenile Index dataset

• Watts et al. – Widespread reproductive deficits in Chesapeake Bay ospreys (2026)

• USGS – Osprey Population and Availability of Menhaden in Chesapeake Bay

• Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries – Menhaden Bycatch Study Results

• LGL Ecological Research Associates – Louisiana Menhaden Purse-Seine Bycatch Final Report

• Berenshtein et al. – Gulf menhaden ecosystem model and ecological reference points

• NOAA Fisheries – King Mackerel stock status

• Chee, Leaf & Dillon – Northern Gulf predator diet and trophic dynamics study

• UFCW Local 400 – Members Spotlight the Real Faces of the Menhaden Fishery in New Video

• UFCW Local 400 – Ocean Harvesters Members Ratify Strong New Agreement

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference – Letter to Governor Wes Moore concerning the menhaden fishery

 

About the American Small Pelagics Network
The American Small Pelagics Network represents fishermen, processors, suppliers, and coastal communities connected to fisheries such as menhaden, mackerel, herring, squid, and butterfish. ASPN supports sustainable fisheries management that supports critical fish species, while maintaining economic opportunities for fishermen and fishing communities.

Press Contact
Stove Boat Communications
(202) 595-1212
contact@smallpelagics.com

URI to join State Department grant to help feed the future in fisheries

October 23, 2026 — A University of Rhode Island professor with a global portfolio of work and a marine research associate in URI’s Coastal Institute are joining a multi-million dollar project funded by the U.S. Department of State, utilizing their expertise in international fisheries.

Professor Austin Humphries, Chair of URI’s Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences, and Lauren Josephs M’17 in the University’s Graduate School of Oceanography are part of a team recently awarded a State Department grant in a project being led by Mississippi State University. The award is up to five years with up to $8 million in the first year.

A fisheries scientist, Humphries studies how ocean health and human well-being are linked. He’s led interdisciplinary research across Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. His research programs have attracted more than $150 million in collaborative funding. He and Josephs are teaming up to implement research that engages policy-makers to curb illegal fishing.

Humphries will lead the marine fisheries component of the project, as part of MSU’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Fish to advance research and innovation that strengthens global aquatic food systems while creating benefits for U.S. agriculture, industry, and food security. The project will be managed by MSU’s Global Center for Aquatic Health and Food Security and builds on the previous Fish Innovation Lab, which supported multidisciplinary research in 10 countries.

The new Fish Innovation Lab will focus on solutions that can move from development to practice, including opportunities to open international markets for U.S. products and technologies, and strengthen the protection of U.S. aquaculture from emerging disease and biosecurity threats.

Read the full article at The University of Rhode Island

 

Worry and encouragment: What two new reports say about the future of Atlantic Striped Bass

October 22, 2026 — There is cause for encouragment and reason for concern from the latest Chesapeake Bay Young-of-the-Year Atlantic Striped Bass surveys.

The annual surveys are done by the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

The news from Maryland was discouraging. For the eighth straight year, striped bass recruitment in Maryland waters was below average. The news from Virginia was better; the numbers show an average spawn and rebounding numbers. The Chesapeake numbers are so important because experts say 70% to 90% of all Atlantic Striped Bass on the east coast are spawned in the Chesapeake.

Striped bass are an iconic species with a multi-billion dollar economic impact on every state from Maine to South Carolina.

Read the full article at WKRG