Saving Seafood

Alabama, Gulf Coast senators push NOAA to tighten enforcement against illegal Mexican fishing in Gulf

January 26, 2026 — Alabama Senators Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt joined a group of Gulf Coast lawmakers in urging federal regulators to crack down on illegal fishing by Mexican vessels in U.S. waters, warning the practice undercuts American fishermen, threatens fish stocks and fuels cartel activity.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, led a Jan. 14 letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calling on the agency to use its import restriction authority and other enforcement tools to stop illegally harvested red snapper from entering U.S. markets according to a news release. Cassidy and other Gulf lawmakers said enforcement at sea alone has not been enough to deter the activity.

“We write to express concern regarding the continued illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing for red snapper by Mexican vessels operating in U.S. waters in the Gulf of America. The Coast Guard has demonstrated sustained and effective operational enforcement through repeated interdictions and seizures; however, the continued presence of Mexican lanchas in U.S. waters suggests that enforcement at sea, by itself, is insufficient to eliminate the incentive to fish illegally. We urge the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to use its import-restriction authorities, and other applicable authorities, to address this problem in a targeted and proportionate manner that supports law-abiding U.S. fisheries,” the senators wrote.

Read the full article at Gulf Coast Media

LOUISIANA: Science, not assumption, in Louisiana menhaden debate

January 21, 2026 — Louisiana has long relied on science to guide its management of natural resources, including energy, agriculture, and fisheries. That approach is now under scrutiny as the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission reviews proposed changes to the state’s menhaden buffer zone regulations, according to an article by the Louisiana Commercial Fisheries Coalition, reported by NOLA.com.

For decades, Louisiana’s menhaden fishery operated under strict coastal limits and has been continuously monitored and independently assessed. Peer-reviewed stock assessments have consistently found that menhaden are not overfished and that overfishing is not occurring, the article reported.

That began to change in 2021, when the state imposed additional blanket buffer restrictions along the coast. Those measures were designed largely to reduce user conflict with the recreational fishing sector, even though Louisiana-specific data to justify the changes did not yet exist. The result was a one-size-fits-all regulatory approach applied to a highly diverse coastline.

Louisiana’s menhaden fleet consists of just 27 vessels, compared to more than 400,000 licensed saltwater anglers statewide. The expanded buffer zones closed traditional fishing grounds that later scientific analysis showed posed little environmental risk. The closures had real economic consequences for menhaden fishermen, processing plant workers, and the coastal communities that rely on year-round commercial fishing jobs.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

For Louisiana’s Menhaden Fishery, If Science Doesn’t Guide Regulations, What Does?

January 20, 2026 — Louisiana has long relied on science to guide how it manages its natural resources. From energy to agriculture to fisheries, legislators and regulators have invested in research, monitoring, and expert oversight to ensure decisions are grounded in evidence rather than assumption.

That commitment is now being tested as the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission reviews the state’s menhaden buffer zone.

How We Got Here

For decades, Louisiana’s menhaden fishery operated under strict coastal limits and remained sustainable. The fishery has been continuously monitored, independently assessed, and confirmed as healthy by peer-reviewed stock assessments. Menhaden are not overfished, and overfishing is not occurring.

But beginning in 2021, additional blanket buffer restrictions were imposed to reduce user conflict with the recreational fishing sector. Many of these measures were accepted in good faith, even though Louisiana-specific data did not yet exist to support them. The rules applied a one-size-fits-all approach to a coastline that is anything but uniform.

To put the issue in perspective, Louisiana has more than 400,000 licensed saltwater anglers and just 27 menhaden vessels. Yet broad restrictions closed traditional fishing grounds that science later showed posed little environmental risk. The result was real economic harm to Louisiana menhaden fishermen, processing plant workers, and coastal communities that depend on these year-round commercial fishing jobs.

Read the full article at the Advocate

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

LOUISIANA: Louisiana’s Fisheries Are Complex. Let’s Base Decisions on Science, Not Assumptions.

January 5, 2026 — A recent Advocate/Times-Picayune article examined what Louisiana anglers caught in 2025 and what those numbers could suggest about the health of our most popular sport fish. It highlighted an important truth that every policymaker, fisherman, and coastal resident needs to recognize:

Louisiana’s fisheries challenges are real, complex, and cannot be reduced to simple narratives or blamed on convenient villains.

Speckled trout remain the most popular recreational catch in Louisiana. Red drum and white trout continue to define our coastal identity. At the same time, state biologists and anglers are watching long-term trends closely and evaluating how environmental conditions, fishing pressure, and policy changes are affecting populations.

Here is what the science and experts continue to point to:

  • Louisiana’s ongoing coastal land loss crisis
  • Loss of nursery habitat critical to juvenile fish survival
  • Storms, freezes, and environmental variability
  • Water quality conditions
  • Declining angler participation, which affects funding and data reliability
  • New management measures that require time and rigorous assessment to fully evaluate

Notably, the article did not identify the Gulf menhaden fishery as a driver of declines in speckled trout or red drum. If scientific evidence clearly linked menhaden harvest to those issues, Louisiana biologists, federal fisheries experts, and responsible journalists would say so. Instead, the discussion continues to focus where the strongest science points: habitat loss, environmental stress, and long-term ecological cycles.

Read the full article at the Advocate

LOUISIANA: Science vs. Spin: The Truth About Menhaden Fishing in Louisiana Waters

December 15, 2025 — Louisiana’s coast supports a wide variety of uses, including conservation, recreation, commercial fishing, energy, and shipping. The debate over menhaden harvest and the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission (LWFC)’s proposed Notice of Intent reflects how difficult it is to balance those interests using science-based decision making.

Recent commentary has raised concerns about the sustainability of Gulf menhaden and the impact of modifying buffer zones. Some of this misleading pressure has come from out-of-state advocacy groups unfamiliar with Louisiana’s working waters. It has led people to ask how the fishery is managed and what the proposed changes would mean on the water.

Louisiana’s menhaden fishery produces over $419 million in annual economic output and provides livelihoods for more than 2,000 people in the industry and its supply chain. Menhaden also serve its ecosystem role as forage for gamefish and recreational fisheries.

In a debate full of online noise, facts still matter most.

Read the full article at The Advocate

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

Study suggests wind power development would have little impact on Gulf shrimping

December 5, 2025 — A study from the University of Miami found that the installation of wind power infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico, currently referred to as the Gulf of America by the U.S. government, is unlikely to impact commercial shrimping operations.

The development of offshore wind projects in the United States has been contentious for much of the commercial fishing industry, with fishers claiming turbines in the ocean block them from accessing valued fishing grounds and disrupt the ecosystem. Wind turbines have also posed a problem for NOAA Fisheries, forcing the agency to reconsider how it conducts fisheries surveys as its traditional research vessels can’t navigate too close to the structures.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

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