Saving Seafood

OREGON: Researchers look for answers after humpback whale stranded on Oregon coast

November 21, 2025 — Experts are looking into the stranding of a young humpback whale who was euthanized Monday, nearly two days after it washed ashore north of Yachats, Oregon while entangled in crabbing gear.

Several research teams conducted a necropsy on Tuesday, and found the 26-foot-long male humpback had some lesions, no stomach contents, and the body was in overall fair condition.

Oregon State University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab took samples for further tests, and will release analysis once the results are in.

Read the full article at KCBY

OREGON: Euthanized humpback whale removed from Oregon Coast beach

November 20, 2025 — A young humpback whale that was euthanized on Monday has been removed from the Oregon beach where it died.

Scientists, veterinary students and members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians worked together to disassemble the whale Tuesday.

Tribal members performed ceremonies for the whale, and collected some of its remains for cultural use.

Read the full article at OPB

Experts Euthanize Oregon Humpback Whale After Unsuccessful Attempt to Free it from Beach

November 19, 2025 — On November 17, veterinarians from the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network euthanized a young humpback whale stranded north of Yachats, Oregon, after an unsuccessful attempt to free it. The whale was entangled in gear when it first stranded on November 15. NOAA Fisheries attributed the gear to the 2023–2024 Oregon commercial Dungeness crab fishery.

Teams of trained responders from Portland and Seattle arrived November 16 and assessed the overall condition of the whale. They set up a rope and pulley system to try to free it from the beach at high tide the following morning. However, the attempt was unsuccessful.

While the whale remained alive, experts determined that euthanasia was the most humane option for this case. The prolonged period of time onshore had left the whale weak and unlikely to survive. Veterinarians euthanized the whale late afternoon on November 17. Responders will conduct a necropsy to assess the animal’s overall health and help determine why it stranded.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

CALIFORNIA: Why holiday crab tradition in California faces another disrupted season

October 28, 2025 — For many Californians, crab bakes, crab cakes and crab feeds are traditional holiday fare.

But the need to protect humpback whales in California’s coastal waters, combined with widespread domoic acid contamination along the northern coast, has once again put the brakes on the Dungeness commercial fishery and parts of the recreational fishery this fall.

Consuming shellfish contaminated with domoic acid can cause illness and death.

Last week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it was delaying the opening of commercial crab fishing statewide until Jan. 1. The season will end July 31. It had been scheduled to start Nov. 1.

New state regulations require the closure of the fishery if three or more humpback whales are confirmed to have been entangled in crab gear during the calendar year. In 2025, four whales have been entangled in commercial Dungeness crab fishery ropes and lines. An additional four humpbacks have been snared in gear that officials suspected but could not confirm was for crab fishing.

Read the full article at The Los Angeles Times

Rising vessel traffic fuels humpback mortalities in New York waters

October 3, 2025 –Escalating vessel flow in New York waters has coincided with an alarming spike in humpback whale mortalities, underscoring a mounting hazard.

The waterways surrounding New York City are extraordinarily crowded. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) is the largest container port on the East Coast and the third largest in the United States, accounting for 13.5% of the country’s market share. In 2024, it handled nearly 9 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), a sharp climb from under 5.8 million a decade earlier. Just a few months ago, in May, the joint-venture port district was the nation’s most occupied cargo gateway.

A 2024 study headed by Lesley Thorne, the dean of research at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, pointed to post-pandemic shifts in trade routes favoring the East to the West Coast and new transits along coastal routes adjacent to PANYNJ as the driving factors behind this surge.

Read the full article at The Washington Post

Endangered fin whale and calf sighting is a “rare occurrence,” New England Aquarium scientist says

August 7, 2025 — New England Aquarium researchers recently documented what they say was a rare sighting of an endangered fin whale and its calf.

Scientists on a July 24 aerial survey flew over the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, about 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod. They observed more than 1,000 marine animals, including seven fin whales, one endangered sperm whale, one humpback whale, two minke whales and more than 900 dolphins.

“Seeing an endangered fin whale and its calf is a rare occurrence,” assistant research scientist Kate Laemmle said in a statement Wednesday.

Read the full article at CBS News

CALIFORNIA: Dungeness trap restrictions tighten as whales move in

April 8, 2025 — As the annual migration of humpback whales makes its way up the California coast, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is tightening restrictions on Dungeness crab gear to protect the endangered mammals while allowing fishing to continue where it’s safe.

Starting at 6 p.m. on April 15, new measures will go into effect for both commercial and recreational fisheries under the state’s Risk Assessment Mitigation Program (RAMP). The latest call from CDFW director Charlton H. Bonham balances the need to keep fishermen on the water with increasing risk of entanglements as whales return to forage offshore.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

CALIFORNIA: State closes crab fisheries along Monterey County and Central Coast to protect migrating humpbacks

April 8, 2025 — California is closing dungeness crab fisheries along Monterey County and the Central Coast to protect migrating humpback whales. According to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, the goal is to keep humpbacks from getting entangled in crab gear as they return to feed along the coast.

Starting April 15, commercial dungeness crab fishing will be banned from Santa Cruz County to the Mexico border. Recreational crab traps will also be restricted in Monterey County.

Read the full article at KCBX

‘Great whale conveyor belt’ nourishes the ocean

March 20, 2025 — Whales are the bees of the ocean.

That’s a conclusion of new research showing that whales undertake the longest journeys to transport nutrients of any mammal or large animal on Earth, much like bees collect and distribute pollen.

Researchers from the University of Vermont, who published their findings in Nature Communications, found that humpback, gray and right whales transport more than 3,700 tons of nitrogen each year while migrating along what’s been dubbed the “great whale conveyor belt.”

“Humpback whales and gray whales make the longest-distance migrations of any mammal on the planet, thousands of miles every year,” said study author Joe Roman. “So this study is the first one that I’m aware of that tries to quantify that movement.”

Read the full article at wbur

Study suggests algal blooms disorient whales, putting them in danger

February 4, 2025 — When certain algae flourish in the sea, they produce neurotoxins that can sicken both humans and marine animals. Acute exposure to these toxins is known to kill whales and other marine mammals outright, but many carry the toxins chronically without displaying obvious symptoms. The authors of a new study suggest these chronic exposures may nonetheless prove lethal.

The study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science in November, found an association between so-called harmful algal blooms (HABs) and whale deaths due to human causes in U.S. waters. The authors propose the reason may be that HAB toxins disorient whales, increasing their vulnerability to ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear, which were by far the main causes of death and injury in the data they analyzed.

“Non-fatal concentrations of algal neurotoxins may render whales more susceptible to injury because they are less able to respond to entangling fishing gear and oncoming ships,” study lead author Greg Silber, an independent researcher and former coordinator of whale recovery efforts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told Mongabay by email. “Knowing this provides an opportunity to reduce whale mortality by using algal bloom prediction capabilities.”

More algal blooms, more whale deaths

To explore the link between HABs and whale deaths, Silber and his daughter and coauthor, Katy Silber, an ecologist at the Institute for Applied Ecology in Santa Fe, New Mexico, studied the timing and location of HAB events alongside large whale mortalities and injuries in U.S. coastal waters. They analyzed data from the East Coast (2000-2021) and West Coast (2007-2021), from UNESCO’s Harmful Algal Event Database, and NOAA’s National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. And they looked only at cases of whale injury or death attributed to human activities, excluding those attributed to natural or unknown causes.

Their main finding? “The number of mortalities/injuries was frequently higher in years with large-scale or severe HABs,” the paper states.

Although yearly changes occurred, both human-caused whale deaths and injuries and HABs showed general increases over time. The paper suggests that while improved monitoring and public reporting may partly explain this rise, year-to-year variations in HABs are influenced by oceanographic processes and warming ocean temperatures linked to climate change. HABs are also intensified by human activities that provide excess nutrients for algae growth.

The study also found differences between the two coasts. On the Pacific coast, it found a clear correlation between HABs and human-caused whale deaths and injuries: In areas with active HABs, there were at least three more whale deaths or injuries compared to places without HABs. On the Atlantic coast, the connection was still there but weaker. This might be because the ocean conditions, algal species, or the way whale and HAB data are collected differ between the two coasts, the researchers wrote.

Read the full article at Mongabay