Saving Seafood

Groundfish industry cleans 55,935 pounds of nets for recycling

June 8, 2026 — Four huge worn-out midwater trawl nets that in old times might have been buried in a landfill are instead being repurposed into usable new products and protection for Ukrainians from explosive Russian drones.

The efforts of over 100 volunteers from Seattle’s wild Alaska pollock catcher-processor fleet hunkered down in 80-degree heat at Terminal 91 on Thursday, May 28, offered both environmental and financial benefits to American Seafoods, Arctic Storm Management Group, Coastal Villages Region Fund, Glacier FIsh Company and Trident Seafoods, all members of the At-Sea Processors Association.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

MAINE: One solution for Maine’s struggling fishing industry? Give fillets away for free

May 26, 2026 —  Surging food costs and fuel prices are pummeling Maine’s struggling groundfishing industry. But a pandemic-era program is helping to keep it afloat as inflation worsens, while also aiming to create a new generation of seafood lovers.

Fishermen Feeding Mainers began in late 2020 and raises money to buy locally caught fish, process it and donate the frozen fillets to schools and food banks in Maine. So far, it has spent more than $4 million on the purchasing and processing of about 1.3 million pounds of locally caught fish.

“Before this [program], chances were you could get down to some really scary-low prices,” said Boothbay fisherman Devyn Campbell of the amount he could earn for his catch.

That’s in part because the market for local fish dried up early in the COVID-19 pandemic when restaurants closed to in-person dining. “COVID destroyed all fish prices,” Campbell said.

Read the full article at KUOW

MAINE: Downeast groundfish vanish, leaving stories and questions behind

May 21, 2026 — As summer approaches in Downeast, Maine, there is a certain sadness about visitors who no longer arrive in the border waters shared with Canada and the Passamaquoddy Tribe. For tens of thousands of years, big cod, pollock, and haddock swam into what we now call Cobscook Bay, Passamaquoddy Bay, the St. Croix River estuary, and surrounding waters. And for thousands of years, the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the people of the pollock, lived a rich life harvesting these fish.

“By 1988 it was all over,” says Jane Cowles, who with her late husband, Rick, once bought fish from the mosquito fleet in Eastport, Maine. “We were there for about ten years,” she says.

“I imagine you can still catch some to eat,” says Edward French, owner and editor of the Quoddy Tides, the easternmost newspaper in the USA. In 1998, French interviewed Reid Wilson of Eastport, Maine. Wilson had been a leader of the mosquito fleet—about twenty fishermen who buzzed out of the harbor before dawn, racing their outboard skiffs to fishing spots no one knows the names of anymore. They’d be back by noon, unloading hundreds of pounds of large and whale cod, pollock, and haddock. Eastporters loved the haddock but not the cod. “Too wormy,” they said. You couldn’t give cod away in Eastport; it all went down the road to processors in Portland and Boston. Those high-quality fish, less than 24 hours out of the water, sold for the same price as 10-day-old cod from the offshore draggers.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Groundfish Gut Check: Partnering with the Fishing Industry to Update Groundfish Data

April 17, 2026 — Blood, guts, and gore! Those words sound like a review for a horror movie, but it’s actually the basis of my field work. I’ve been looking at and evaluating a lot of fish guts for the Cooperative Research Branch Conversion Factor Project.

Giving Groundfish Conversion Factors a Refresh

Many fish are gutted at sea, which means the internal organs are removed to prevent spoiling. Once these fish are offloaded from a commercial trip, scientists apply a conversion factor to the gutted weight to convert it to a whole weight which they use to evaluate the abundance of a fish stock. As the ocean changes, fluctuations in temperature and shifting prey availability impact fish metabolism and physiology. That can cause changes in average fish size and weight.

The conversion factors used for cod, haddock, and pollock haven’t been updated since the 1960s, so they’re in need of a little refresh. That’s where I come in. I’ve been sailing on commercial groundfish vessels all over the region. The goal? Collect data that represents the landings of the commercial groundfish fleet from different ports, gear types, and gutting methods.

My mobile office changes from vessel to vessel as I bring everything I need to do my job back and forth each time. Sailing aboard commercial fishing vessels is not a 9–5 job. Sometimes we leave in the middle of the day, sometimes we leave in the middle of the night. In fact, the only consistency is that when the lines get thrown, everyone is quite literally in the same boat. I work with the captain and crew on each trip to find a space and establish a work flow that fits their deck space and fishing operations.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Input on Groundfish Rules Proposed to Reduce Entanglements

February 12, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries is inviting public comment on proposed changes in the West Coast groundfish fishery. The proposal would allow bottom-fishing gear to use only one vertical line to the surface and require the lines to be clearly marked. The actions would give fishing crews more leeway to adjust their gear to conditions and reduce the risk of lines entangling marine life.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council sought the changes to help reduce the number of whales and other marine life that get entangled in fishing gear along the West Coast. The changes would also lay groundwork for reducing regulations to give groundfish vessels more flexibility in how and when they pursue groundfish.

Marking the lines according to their fishery and owner would also help collect better data on entanglements, providing more clarity for fisheries and managers.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

ALASKA: Modifications recommended on retainable amounts of groundfish species

October 22, 2025 — Federal fishery management officials meeting in early October in Anchorage recommended modifying regulations that implement maximum retainable amounts of groundfish species.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) recently noted that there is broad support from multiple fishing sectors in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea for moving forward with this action, adding that the analytical document is clear on the positive benefits their action will have for multiple fleets.

The council said its preferred alternatives would improve regulations that implement the maximum retainable amounts, as well as clarify their current regulations, make maximum retainable amount calculations easier, reduce regulatory discards, ease regulatory burden, and address medical, mechanical and weather issues that can impact those calculations.

Read the full article at The Cordova Times

NOAA Fisheries Partners with Northeast Groundfish Industry to Update Key Data for Stock Assessments

September 22, 2025 — The commercial groundfishing industry has long been a cornerstone of New England’s coastal communities. For generations, fishermen have harvested species including Atlantic cod, haddock, and flounder, contributing significantly to local livelihoods and the food supply. NOAA Fisheries works to promote science-based management of these species, ensuring both the industry’s economic viability and the long-term health of marine ecosystems.

Why Weight Matters: Bridging the Gap for Accurate Assessments

Commercial fishery quotas and recorded catch are typically based on total fish weight, which is easy to measure in bulk. However, scientists use stock assessment models that require numbers of individual fish to accurately evaluate population trends and dynamics. To bridge the gap between total weight and number of fish, reported commercial catch weights must be translated into fish numbers using length-weight relationships and conversion factors derived from biological sampling data.

The length-weight relationship—a mathematical model to predict a fish’s weight based on its length—is a fundamental tool in fisheries science. Converting length to weight is more complex for species like Atlantic cod, which are typically gutted at sea. A critical step involves converting the fish’s dressed weight back to whole, or live, weight. This conversion is achieved by applying a ‘conversion factor’, which represents the ratio of the gutted weight to the whole weight.

“Conversion factors directly impact our estimates of commercial landings,” said Charles Perretti, a stock assessment analyst with NOAA Fisheries’ Population Dynamics Branch. “So getting those factors right is important. “Many of the existing conversion factors and length-weight relationships used for Northeast species are based on older data, some dating back to the 1960s. Over time, fish growth rates and body shape can change. Fishing practices also evolve along with technology and shifting market preferences. Stock assessment models benefit from up-to-date inputs including conversion factors and length-weight relationships.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

New Data Shows Healthy Numbers of Quillback Rockfish off California; Fishing to Resume

September 22, 2025 — New data collected with help from California fishermen has revealed more quillback rockfish off the California Coast than estimated earlier. These findings allow NOAA Fisheries to drop fishing restrictions meant to help rebuild the species.

The change frees commercial and recreational fleets to resume fishing, particularly in shallower federal waters, for many species of groundfish off California, including rockfish. These fisheries generated more than $150 million in landings in some years. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife relaxed limits in state waters in August. NOAA Fisheries has now done the same in federal waters off California, which was announced on September 18.

“This demonstrates the value of good data to support the science,” said Keeley Kent, chief of the groundfish branch in NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. “The industry stepped up and helped gather a lot more data, and that shows there is a healthy population of quillback out there.”

The first-ever stock assessment for quillback rockfish off California in 2021 was based on the limited data available at the time. It found that the lesser known species in that area was below a minimum stock size threshold. The Pacific Fishery Management Council took precautionary steps to reduce the harvest. NOAA Fisheries determined in December 2023 that the species was overfished. Sustainable fisheries regulations required NOAA Fisheries to develop a rebuilding plan, which further limited fishing for quillback and other rockfish that can be caught with quillback.

These limits hit in 2023 just as low salmon returns also shut down salmon fishing in California for the first of 3 years, said Tim Klassen, who captains charter trips for Reel Steel Fishing in Eureka, California. He’s also a member of the groundfish advisory subpanel for the Pacific Fishery Management Council. “The timing couldn’t have been worse.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

New England council tries again on Northeast groundfish plan

July 8, 2025 — The New England Fishery Management Council will resubmit Amendment 25 to  its Northeast groundfish plan, after U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnik disapproved the regional council’s original December 2024 proposal.

The National Marine Fisheries said May 28 “that Amendment 25 and its supporting analyses do not adequately demonstrate how the proposed action is consistent with National Standard 1 or other required provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.”

After a lengthy deliberation at the council’s Junemeeting, its members voted to resubmit Amendment 25, “which would replace the current Atlantic cod stocks in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank with the newly identified cod stocks in Eastern Gulf of Maine, Western Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and Southern New England,” council officials announced July 3.

The plan was protested by New England fishermen after the council’s initial approval last December. Despite Lutnik’s disapproval, NMFS still assessed that a new four-stock Atlantic cod structure “and the resulting management track stock assessments have been determined to be the best scientific information available.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NOAA reverses course on winter Florida groundfish ban

June 10, 2025 — In a victory for sport fishermen, NOAA has scrapped a proposed rule that would have banned fishing for 55 fish species off Florida’s Atlantic coast during the winter to aid the recovery of overfished red snapper, one of the region’s most prized sport species.

In a bulletin announcing a suite of changes to federal management of South Atlantic red snapper, NOAA said it had axed the three-month ban — called a “discard reduction season” — on dozens of species that share the same near-bottom habitat with snapper, citing heavy opposition from fishing interests.

Those species include black sea bass, red grouper, vermillion snapper, gag, scamp, greater amberjack and gray triggerfish.

Read the full article at E&E News