Saving Seafood

Rigs-to-Reefs hearing sparks fight over Trump energy plans

January 15, 2026 — A House hearing on a bipartisan bill promoting the use of decommissioned offshore oil rigs as artificial reefs instead devolved into a contentious partisan squabble Tuesday as lawmakers debated the merits of offshore drilling and the Trump administration’s oversight of it.

The Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearing was intended to discuss H.R. 5745, the “Marine Fisheries Habitat Protection Act,” sponsored by Rep. Mike Ezell (R-Miss.). The bill would expand the use of old offshore oil platforms as artificial reefs by streamlining a decades-old permitting process for doing so in federal waters along the five Gulf Coast states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

But the hearing detoured into a debate over offshore drilling, and assertions by some Democrats that the proposal amounts to a financial and regulatory giveaway for the oil and gas industry, and is an “extreme waiver of responsibilities” for their infrastructure.

Read the full article at E&E News

FLORIDA: A Florida Oyster Fishery and Its Community Fight for Their Future

January 8, 2026 — On a late afternoon in early November, Xochitl Bervera launches The Roxie Girl from St. George Island into the gentle waters of Florida’s Apalachicola Bay. Almost as soon as the boat gets up to speed, she kills the motor and drifts the final feet toward her destination: a 2.5-acre grid of buoys and bags floating in Rattlesnake Cove. This is her farm, Water Is Life Oysters.

Bervera and her partner, Kung Li, launched the business in 2022, not long after the state implemented a five-year ban on harvesting the bay’s beloved but imperiled wild oysters, leaving the surrounding community without its economic engine and sense of identity.

As the sun sinks toward the horizon, Kung Li hauls in a bag of oysters and samples a mollusk to be sure it meets muster. They pop it open with a twist of an oyster knife and find everything that has made Apalachicola oysters famous for generations: briny liquor surrounding firm, sweet meat. “That,” Kung Li exclaims, “is a good oyster.” They put five bags on ice.

Oysters have been eaten for millennia from this estuary, where freshwater from the Apalachicola River meets the salty Gulf of Mexico to form an ideal breeding ground. In its heyday, the bay supplied 90 percent of Florida’s oysters and 10 percent of the country’s. But after a 2013 fishery failure all but wiped out a $9 million annual harvest that once supported 2,500 jobs, the state officially closed the bay in 2020 for five years.

Since the closure, locally farmed oysters—Crassostrea virginica, the same species as their wild predecessors—are the closest thing anyone’s had to that old familiar flavor. Water Is Life is among a few dozen farms that have attempted to fill the void, hoping to preserve the bay’s oyster culture while the state embarks on a costly reef restoration. Bervera, a former criminal justice organizer, and Kung Li, a former civil rights lawyer, harbor a vision for a revived Apalachicola Bay. They believe a vibrant local food system can once again feed this community and restore dignified jobs that protect the bay’s health rather than diminish it.

“I look around the country and maybe that’s not possible in many places any more,” Bervera says, “but it’s very possible here.”

In a controversial decision, the state reopened the commercial oyster fishery on Jan. 1, leaving this small community on the Forgotten Coast—named for its relative quiet and lack of development—anxious about its economic future. If the oysters come back, so will the industry. If they don’t, roughly 5,000 residents in Apalachicola and its neighbor Eastpoint fear their towns will be overtaken by resort-style development like so much of Florida’s coastline, pushing out both their culture and their communities.

It’s a heavy weight to rest on a 3-inch mollusk.

Read the full article at Civil Beats

Federal government, opponents battle over right whale rule

December 23, 2025 — The federal government is trying to fend off a lawsuit challenging a boat speed limit designed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, which migrate each year to calving grounds off Northeast Florida and other parts of the Southeast.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys Friday filed a motion asking a Florida federal judge to uphold the speed limit in a challenge filed by boat captain Gerald Eubanks, who was fined $14,250 for exceeding the limit while piloting a boat from Florida to South Carolina in 2022.

Friday’s motion and a competing motion filed in October by Eubanks’ attorneys seek summary judgments, which would effectively resolve the case without going to trial. U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell on Friday scheduled an April 10 hearing.

The lawsuit, which names as defendants the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, challenges the fine and the legitimacy of a rule that limits speeds to 10 knots for vessels that are over 65 feet during certain times and places off the East Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, includes the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full article at WGCU

Scientists investigate shark stranding in Florida

December 11, 2025 — A puzzling stranding drew NOAA Fisheries experts to Panama City Beach, Fla. On Nov. 21, an 11.4-foot female shortfin mako washed ashore in the early morning hours.

According to NOAA, strandings of “large pelagic species like the mako shark are relatively rare for this area,” prompting an immediate response from the Southeast Fisheries Science Center to secure the shark and conduct a full necropsy- an animal autopsy.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

FLORIDA: Reps. and Dems. show rare unity, oppose plan to drill off Florida coast

December 9, 2025 — There isn’t too much these days that the 20 Republicans and eight Democrats who comprise Florida’s congressional delegation agree upon, but they have united to take a stand together against a proposal to drill for oil off the state’s Gulf coast.

The delegation has joined forces in signing on to a letter sent to President Donald Trump calling for him to honor a moratorium he signed in 2020 banning drilling in the Eastern Gulf and to extend the prohibition into perpetuity to protect the military training conducted there and the state’s tourism industry.

“In 2020, you made the right decision to use ex11th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Analysisecutive action to extend the moratorium on oil and gas leasing off Florida’s gulf and east coasts through 2032, recognizing the incredible value Florida’s pristine coasts have to our state’s economy, environment, and military community,” the letter states.

Read the full article at Pensacola News Journal

Trump administration releases its expanded oil and gas drilling plan

November 21, 2025 — Californians were already gearing up for battle even before the Trump administration released a draft plan on Nov. 20 that proposes a broad expansion of oil and gas drilling and lease sales along America’s coasts, including California, Alaska and west of Florida.

The Department of the Interior announced as many as 34 potential offshore lease sales across 21 of 27 existing Outer Continental Shelf planning areas, covering roughly 1.27 billion acres. That includes 21 areas off the coast of Alaska, seven in the Gulf of America and six along the Pacific coast.

The plan quickly drew opposition from state leaders and environmental groups – and support from some business organizations. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office fully opposes the plan.

Read the full article at USA Today

Red Lobster’s latest turnaround initiatives include new seafood boil flavors, cocktails

November 13, 2025 — Restaurant chain Red Lobster, which has implemented several initiatives intended to turn around sales after emerging from bankruptcy last year, has released new flavors for its seafood boils, as well as cocktails and new entrées, to further boost sales.

The Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.-based operator of more than 500 restaurants globally first launched seafood boils as part of its Crabfest promotion this summer. At that time, it debuted the Mariner’s Boil, which includes a Maine lobster tail, a dozen shrimp, snow crab legs, corn, and red potatoes, and the Sailor’s Boil, which features shrimp, smoked sausage, corn, and red potatoes.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

FLORIDA: An expanded snapper season is proposed for Florida anglers

November 11, 2025 — Florida has formally asked federal officials for the authority to manage red snapper in the Atlantic Ocean, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission submitted an “Exempted Fishing Permit” to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick seeking to allow the state to assume management of recreational red snapper in state and federal waters off Florida’s eastern coast starting in 2026.

“We know that we can do this effectively, and we know that this is something that could make a big difference for our recreational anglers, particularly in Northeast Florida,” DeSantis said Monday during an event at Amelia Island Marina in Fernandina Beach.

Read the full article at the Sun Sentinel

Southern states ask US government to hand over control of red snapper management

October 29, 2025 — Officials from three Southern states are again asking the U.S. federal government to cede its regulatory authority over red snapper fishing in the South Atlantic Ocean to state governments, arguing that more local control of the species will be better for the fisheries.

While the South Atlantic red snapper fishery is federally designated as subject to overfishing, recreational fishers claim the fish population is far greater than official numbers, and state representatives and officials have resisted all efforts to limit fishing.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Florida’s Oldest Seafood Trade Group Joins Menhaden Debate, Defending Science-Based Management

October 27, 2025 — The following was released by the Southeastern Fisheries Association:

The Southeastern Fisheries Association (SFA) — established in 1952 and describing itself as Florida’s oldest seafood industry association with members ranging from fishermen and boat owners to processors, markets, bait providers, restaurants, transportation companies, for-hire charter operators, and consumers from North Carolina through Texas — has urged the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Menhaden Management Board to reject drastic new quota reductions and keep management rooted in the fishery’s risk framework and established reference points.

In a formal letter to the Commission, SFA pointed to the most recent ecological reference point (ERP) assessment, which, the group wrote, “again found that the stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring,” adding that “management has consistently been more conservative than single-species reference points would have historically prescribed.”

The association said those findings demonstrate that current controls are already protecting the resource.  “The probability of exceeding the ERP F THRESHOLD under current management is low,” the letter states.  Because of that low risk, SFA argued against the sweeping 55-percent harvest cuts being discussed by some commissioners and outside advocates.

Instead, SFA proposed a narrowly precautionary adjustment to the coast-wide total allowable catch (TAC).  “The coastwide TAC should not be reduced by more than a precautionary 10 percent (i.e., no lower than 210,195 metric tons). This would ensure no chance of overfishing in 2026 and only about a 1 percent probability if maintained through 2027–2028.”  The association emphasized that anything more severe would be inconsistent with the science and the Commission’s own risk analysis.

The letter also reminded commissioners of the guiding fairness standard contained in the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Interstate Fisheries Management Program Charter: “Management measures shall be designed to achieve equivalent management results throughout the range of a stock.”  SFA cautioned against using allocation changes to offset or disguise politically motivated quota reductions, arguing that management should remain consistent across jurisdictions.

On Chesapeake Bay issues, SFA advised the Board to hold off on any new restrictions until the recently funded Bay-specific research is complete. “The Board should await this new and relevant science before taking further action.” the association wrote, referring to the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) study now underway to design a scientifically defensible Bay harvest cap.

SFA concluded that the Commission’s present management already provides a strong, precautionary framework.  By the association’s own assessment, “The probability of exceeding the ERP F THRESHOLD under current management is low,” and therefore, it said, “The coastwide TAC should not be reduced by more than a precautionary 10 percent.”  The group urged commissioners to let those numbers — not politics — guide their decision.

Read the full letter here