Saving Seafood

New assessment shows Gulf of Maine lobster stock is declining and overfishing is occurring

November 3, 2025 — For the first time, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has issued an assessment that finds that overfishing is occurring in the lobster stock in Northern New England waters. And regulators are recommending a re-evaluation of management strategies for the lucrative resource.

Most of the lobsters Americans eat are caught in the Gulf of Maine, and Maine’s lobster fishery is one of the most valuable seafood industries in the country. But there are more signals that the fishery is changing, fast.

Tracy Pugh, a fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and the chair of the Commission’s technical committee, presented the results of the new 2025 lobster stock assessment to the American Lobster Management Board this week in Delaware.

And she says according to their models, the abundance of lobsters in the Gulf of Maine and George’s Bank area has declined 34% since its peak in 2018, and is now approaching levels last seen around fifteen years ago.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Stock assessment for US lobster shows population shifts, minor overfishing

October 31, 2025 — A recent stock assessment by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) indicates lobster stock on the East Coast of the U.S. is depleted to record low abundance in Southern New England (SNE), and overfishing of the stock is occurring in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank (GOM/GBK).

The lobster benchmark assessment found the stock in GOM/GBK – which accounts for the vast majority of lobster landings in the U.S. – has declined 34 percent since peak levels in 2018. According to the ASMFC, the GOM region in particular has accounted for an average of 82 percent of annual landings since 1982, while the GBK fishery accounts for 5 percent.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

New England shrimp fishery likely to see continued moratorium

September 17, 2025 — The shrimp fishery off the coast of the northeast U.S. region of New England is likely to face continued shutdowns as the stock continues to struggle.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) first voted to close the shrimp fishery in the Gulf of Maine in 2013 after the harvest that winter was the smallest since 1978. Despite the closures, the stock has not shown signs of recovery, and the fishery was closed for three more years in 2018, kept closed three years later, and in December 2024, the moratorium was extended further.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Right whale plane surveys in Gulf of Maine suspended with $200K budget cut

September 4, 2025 — Fall airplane surveys tracking North Atlantic right whales north of Cape Cod in the Gulf of Maine, run by the Provincetown-based Center for Coastal Studies, are off the table after federal funding was cut.

While the fall flights are grounded, the center’s leadership stressed that the winter and spring surveys over Cape Cod Bay remain unaffected and on schedule.

The center expanded its whale research program beyond the bay last year. The newer program was supported with funds from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that oversees ocean and wildlife programs.

North Atlantic right whales are among the world’s most endangered large whales species, and Cape Cod Bay is a key seasonal habitat, where a significant portion of the population gathers, especially in the spring.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

Gulf of Maine sees first open-water ocean alkalinity enhancement field trial in US

August 29, 2025 — The U.S.’s first ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) field trial in federal waters took place on Aug. 13, with the dispersal of 16,500 gallons of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine. Led by a team of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) scientists, this milestone represents the culmination of three years of planning, which for the last year has included a steady stream of feedback (including some unvarnished pushback) from the fishing industry.

I joined the field trial as a fishing industry observer, and this is my report to the fleet.

Fishing industry involvement in project planning

Ocean alkalinity enhancement was an enigmatic term to the New England fishermen who heard it for the first time in summer 2024, when the EPA opened a public comment period for input on a permit WHOI’s LOC-NESS (Locking Away Carbon in the Northeast Shelf and Slope) project.

“We don’t have a lot of tolerance for your curiosity right now,” and “The ocean’s not a lab rat,” were some of the comments made by anxious fishermen during the first informational meetings hosted by the WHOI team.

In the year since that first exposure, fishermen and their representatives have attended numerous meetings with the LOC-NESS team at port meetings, trade shows, and New England Fisheries Management Council meetings. As a result of fishermen’s input, the scientists changed the planned location of the project and lined up federal funding (later retracted) to test the effects of sodium hydroxide on the larval and egg stages of commercially important species like lobster and herring.

When the time came to perform the field trial, it seemed appropriate to ask if a fisherman could witness the event as an observer, so I asked if I could tag along. They were happy to oblige, and even set aside a tie-up stipend so I wouldn’t lose income due to time away from my fishing job.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Atlantic bluefin tuna diets are shifting in a changing Gulf of Maine

August 11, 2025 — Maine’s coastal communities have been hooked on the Atlantic bluefin tuna since at least the late 1880s—first as bycatch, until the 1930s when the fish became a prized target in fishing tournaments. Through the subsequent decades, bluefin tuna have and continue to support working waterfronts in Maine and beyond.

Despite a decline in prices, a single bluefin tuna can land over $10,000, and in 2024 alone, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that commercial and recreational landings exceeded 3.5 million pounds, fueling a range of economic activities from food markets to boat building and gear sales.

Sammi Nadeau (’18, ’21G), the lab manager at UMaine’s Pelagic Fisheries Lab, conducted a study recently published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series that illustrated a shift in the tuna’s diet and described the role of foraging in the tuna’s lifecycle.

“You can imagine that those migrations from across the ocean and things like reproduction are extremely energetically demanding,” said Nadeau, “So being able to get a really good meal, fill back up and get ready to go back across the ocean is important to fulfill their life history.”

Read the full article at the PHYS.org

Comparing the effectiveness of common Atlantic sea scallop farming methods

August 6, 2025 — Much of the scallop farming techniques used in the U.S. derive from practices in Japan, where scallops have long been a part of the country’s seafood industry. Researchers from the University of Maine are working to test and adapt those practices to help grow the industry in the Gulf of Maine, where oyster farming is currently the most well-known form of aquaculture in Maine’s blue economy.

Building off a four-year study published in the spring, which compared the effectiveness of two different Atlantic sea scallop farming techniques, UMaine researchers further analyzed the economic advantages and disadvantages of the same two methods of scallop aquaculture. Lead researcher Damian Brady, professor of marine sciences at UMaine, and co-author Chris Noren, a postdoctoral researcher, used their results to develop a user-friendly application that helps interested parties compare the different costs and possibilities associated with building their own scallop farms.

“Now new farmers can make educated decisions on what option is going to be most viable for them, taking into account their location, timeframe, budget and all the other pieces that go into scallop farming,” Brady said. “Ultimately, our goal is to help Maine grow this industry to its fullest potential and preserve Maine’s working waterfronts—an integral part of the state’s culture and history.”

Published in the journal Aquaculture, the study looked at two of the most common options for scallop farming: lantern net and ear-hanging. Previously, lantern net methods were thought to be more cost-effective, but this study shows the ways in which the ear-hanging method can be more cost-efficient over a longer period of time.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

Federal regulators eliminate Gulf of Maine wind power zone

July 31, 2025 — The Trump administration has erased all wind energy areas in federal waters, including two million acres in the Gulf of Maine.

The zones were developed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to offer wind power leases to energy developers.

Amber Hewett director of offshore wind energy at the National Wildlife Foundation said removing the areas is a follow up to the administration’s earlier order to stop all wind power lease sales.

“The change here is that now, when a new administration comes in, those areas won’t be ready and waiting. They have been deleted, and the process will need to start again at the beginning,” Hewett said.

Establishing the areas took years of consultation with fisheries, coastal communities, shipping companies, tribes, environmental groups and other interests.

Through those discussions regulators set aside areas that were the least disruptive, Hewett said.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Gulf of Maine sees rising pH, defying expectations of increasing ocean acidity

July 31, 2025 — The Gulf of Maine—home to commercial fisheries for oysters, clams and mussels—has unexpectedly avoided an increase in seawater acidity, helping to preserve the health of its fisheries.

“Contrary to expectation,” a team of scientists wrote in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, we … find that pH has increased (+ 0.2 pH units) over the past 40 years, despite concurrent rising atmospheric CO2.” (Determining the decades-long trend required measurements of boron isotopes within annual skeletal bands built by crustose coralline algae. More about that later.)

The Gulf’s acidity levels are unexpected because atmospheric levels of  continue to climb. And because carbon dioxide is absorbed faster and easier into , the frigid waters of the Gulf would be expected to take in more carbon. More carbon in water generally lowers pH and increases acidity.

“One goes down and the other goes up,” said Alan Wanamaker, an Iowa State University professor of earth, atmosphere, and climate and a paper co-author. “That’s what we’ve seen in the .”

Read the full article at PHYS.org

MAINE: Maine Sea Grant students helping state conserve endangered Atlantic salmon

July 22, 2025 — Atlantic Salmon have been on the brink of extinction for more than two decades, but through conservation efforts researchers in Maine are working to improve the species growth while also building the next generation of marine scientists.

From fish stocking to lab work, students are diving into efforts to help conserve the endangered Atlantic salmon along the Gulf of Maine this summer though a program offered by Maine Sea Grant and NOAA Fisheries.

“We take genetic samples and scale samples and all kinds of stuff, so we can continue to have data on them into the future,” said Maine Sea Grant Intern Wade Hill.

Read the full article at Fox 22