November 5, 2026 — A NOAA Fisheries analysis shows increased depredation by sharks in the Gulf of Mexico and the Southeast Atlantic.
The analysis looked at data from the Southeast Fisheries Science Center’s Bottom Longline Survey, which focuses on sharks, red snapper, yellowedge and red grouper, and golden tilefish from Brownsville, Texas, to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
November 3, 2026 — The way Gulf Coast states manage their limits for red snapper, a popular catch among recreational anglers, is poised to change next year as fisheries management officials recommend adding more flexibility for states into federal rules.
The Gulf Fishery Management Council took action last week to alter how red snapper catch limit “paybacks” are done at their meeting in Galveston, Texas. The council advises the federal government on managing species in its Gulf of Mexico waters. Its members include sportfishers, commercial harvesters and scientists.
Gulf states are each allotted a specific amount of fish per species that recreational anglers may pull from the water every season. It’s done to ensure anglers don’t take too many, which can destabilize the population or even lead to a species’ extinction.
Previously, if a state went over its seasonal catch limit for red snapper, it had the overage amount taken away from its limit the following season, known as a payback.
November 2, 2026 — The number of stocks on NOAA Fisheries’ overfishing list has declined from 23 to 15 – an all-time low.
The agency’s Status of the Stocks report is an annual report to Congress summarizing the overfishing or overfished status of the 522 stocks or stock complexes it tracks. In its fiscal year 2025 report, the agency removed eight stocks from its overfishing list – Atlantic blue marlin; Gulf of Mexico greater amberjack and gag; Mid-Atlantic summer flounder; Western and Central Pacific silky hark; and Southern Atlantic snowy grouper, gag, and blueline tilefish – and added no new stocks. That leaves just 15, or 4 percent, of the 522 stocks on the overfishing list.
November 2, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries is seeking public input on a proposed cooperative research project that would study fish spawning aggregations throughout the Gulf of Mexico, including identifying key spawning locations and monitoring when and where commercially and recreationally important species gather to reproduce.
The agency is accepting comments through Nov. 12 on an application for an exempted fishing permit (EFP) that would allow participating commercial fishermen and recreational charter captains to conduct targeted sampling trips as part of the four-year research effort.
The project aims to verify, characterize, monitor and model multi-species fish spawning aggregations. Researchers hope the findings will help improve scientific understanding of spawning activity and provide information to support fisheries management decisions.
The proposed study would involve up to 120 sampling trips over four years, or approximately 30 trips annually. Trained professional captains would conduct the trips without scientists aboard, working as part of a designated study fleet.
The project also would establish advisory groups and work with fishermen to identify priority spawning locations for research. An initial group of potential sites was identified during a workshop funded through the Restore Science Program. Additional locations would be identified through meetings with small groups of fishermen in 2026 and 2027, as well as throughout the project using information from monitoring databases, bathymetric data, published and unpublished research, seasonal patterns and fishermen’s knowledge.
October 30, 2026 — Sea Grant is investing $1.3 million in four projects aimed at helping young fishermen enter and advance in the commercial fishing industry, with programs planned in Maine, Virginia, Washington, and the Gulf of America.
The funding comes through the Young Fishermen’s Development Program, established under the Young Fishermen’s Development Act, which was signed into law in 2021. The program is designed to address barriers facing new entrants to commercial fishing, including high financial risks, limited training opportunities, and challenges building a viable career in the industry.
The four competitively selected projects will provide training, technical assistance, and career development opportunities. Award recipients are also required to provide a 25% non-federal funding match.
In Maine, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association received $399,677 for its Young Lobstermen Business and Leadership Advancement Project, led by principal investigator Patrice McCarron.
October 29, 2026 — The Norwegian energy company Equinor told investors and the media on Wednesday that its offshore wind project, Empire Wind, is approximately 80 percent complete but running behind schedule due to delays in U.S. shipbuilding. It said the delays were outside its control and that it now expects the wind farm off the coast of New York to deliver first power by mid-2027.
“On Empire Wind, despite the stop work orders, and all of that, we have been able to progress this and develop this, and it hasn’t really slowed us down much,” said CFO Torgrim Reitan during the investor conference call on October 28. He reported that top side construction is now expected to begin in late December, and the company expects first power during the first half of next year.
Equinor selected an installation system working with Maersk Wind, which built its installation vessel, Maersk Viridis, at Seatrium in Singapore. The massive 40,000 gross ton vessel had its own challenges in construction, with disputes with the shipyard. Those issues were resolved, and the vessel arrived off Pascagoula, Mississippi, in August. It is undergoing training and testing for its unique barge system.
October 28, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will be making USD 5 billion (EUR 4.5 billion) in loans available to expand and improve processing capacity for the nation’s seafood, meat, and poultry industries.
“From our crabbers in Alaska, to the lobstermen in Maine, to the great shrimpers in the Gulf of America, our nation is blessed with incredible men and women who work to bring this bounty to our plates. The Trump administration has recognized their incredible efforts and is working to provide all the necessary tools for them to succeed with our America First Seafood Strategy,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a release.
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.”
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 – 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
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
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(202) 595-1212
contact@smallpelagics.com
October 21, 2026 — Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists across the region jumped into action to monitor its impacts. One particular effort focused on pelagic nekton—the small critters like fish, shrimp, and cephalopods that swim freely in the ocean and serve as the base of pelagic food webs. The Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf (DEEPEND) Consortium led this project to quantify long-term trends in the offshore fauna of the Gulf. While observed declines in these critical prey groups can’t be tied directly to the spill, scientists have not identified another likely explanation.
The first pelagic nekton sampling effort took place as soon as possible following the spill, with sampling occurring almost continuously for 9 months in 2011. These data represent the benchmark of pelagic nekton to which past and future numbers can be compared. The numbers were also similar to data collected during the 1980s and 1990s.
The next sampling involved six efforts across four consecutive years (2015–2018), followed by three more in 2021–2023. Overall, these efforts comprise more than a decade of abundance and composition data for pelagic nekton in the Gulf of America.
During each of these events, the project team sampled discrete depths from 0 to 1,500 meters in the Gulf using a 10-square-meter Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System, or MOCNESS, with 3 millimeter mesh. Once net tows were complete, the science teams identified and counted each of the animals collected in each sample.
In addition to traditional net-sampling methods, the team also used echosounders to measure acoustic backscatter in the water column during the day and at night. This allowed them to independently estimate relative abundance of animals in fine spatial detail. Scientists also collected tissue samples from three dominant lanternfish species to monitor changes in genetic diversity.