Saving Seafood

Feds to weigh possible new fishing rules and restrictions to protect Mid-Atlantic whales

August 17, 2026 — Federal fisheries officials are beginning a process that could eventually lead to new fishing restrictions along the East Coast designed to protect native whale species.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced Aug 14 that it intends to conduct an environmental review of potential changes to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan. The plan is intended to reduce deaths and serious injuries of North Atlantic right whales, humpback whales, and fin whales caused by entanglements in commercial trap/pot and gillnet fishing gear along the East Coast.

NMFS stresses that Friday’s publication merely begins a public comment process and is not a proposed federal rule.

Read the full article at WBOC

NOAA Scientists Discover Repeat Spawning in Pacific Capelin

August 12, 2026 — For certain fish species, like Pacific salmon, reproduction is a once-in-a-lifetime event, known as semelparity. Many other fish are iteroparous—meaning they can spawn repeatedly throughout their lives. New research by NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center reveals the first evidence that Pacific capelin can be repeat spawners.

Over the past decade, the North Pacific Ocean has faced extreme climate variability, including marine heatwaves that severely impacted capelin populations. Understanding capelin’s reproductive flexibility under these fluctuating conditions is crucial for predicting their annual reproductive potential and long-term resilience. Capelin abundance is also an important indicator of the marine ecosystem health.

Examining Reproductive Flexibility in Fluctuating Environments

Historically, the life history, ecology, behavior, and population dynamics of Pacific capelin have not been studied as well as their commercially important counterparts in the Atlantic. In North Pacific and Arctic ecosystems, Pacific capelin serve as a major forage fish and primary food source for Steller sea lions, humpback whales, and other marine mammals. They also are a key subsistence resource and an important food source for commercially important groundfish.

Capelin are short-lived—typically surviving only 1 to 4 years. Their abundance fluctuates wildly in changing environments, leading to multiyear population crashes during marine heatwaves. Recent research highlights that these heatwaves shrink capelin distribution and deplete their energy reserves. Ultimately, these combined stressors leave capelin highly vulnerable to mortality and put the predator populations that rely on them at risk of decline.

In this new experimental study of captive fish, NOAA scientists looked more closely at the spawning potential of Pacific capelin. They researched their life history and how they respond to shifting environments.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Fishing Vessel Joins Trained Team to Free Injured Humpback Whale 20 Miles off Oregon Coast

August 4, 2026 — An Oregon team joined by experts from Washington and a local fisherman freed a severely entangled humpback whale about 20 miles off the Oregon Coast on July 26. While the team removed all of the gear from the whale, the entanglement left the young whale’s jaw permanently open, leaving it unable to feed and unlikely to survive.

Oregon State University research assistant Craig Hayslip spotted the whale from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter surveying the coast for whales and fishing gear three days earlier. He reported the whale anchored by heavy fishing gear to NOAA’s West Coast Entanglement Hotline, which activates trained responders across the region.

Responders asked local fisherman Poggy Lapham to join the effort and help lift the gear with the hydraulic winch on his boat, F/V Michele Ann. That gave responders access to free the whale from the gear. An online photo catalog identified the whale as a young humpback previously sighted in British Columbia in 2024.

The fishing vessel recovered a tangle of more than 3,000 feet of line, five sablefish pots, and individual commercial Dungeness crab traps from Oregon and Washington. Responders and the fishermen worked together to analyze the gear and evaluate the entanglement. The condition of the gear indicated that it could be derelict or lost gear. NOAA Fisheries is following up with gear owners for more details.

Lapham said the entanglement should be a wake-up call for the fishing industry to ask, “How can we better incentivize gear retrieval and tracking of lost gear to reduce this risk?”

“This is truly a heartbreaker because of the whale’s injuries, but we will learn so much from this case that can help us prevent future entanglements,” said Lauren Saez, who helped coordinate the response for NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region. “We disentangled the whale safely, got all the gear back, and had great collaboration with the fishing industry. Additionally, we got whale DNA samples from the gear to help identify which population it belongs to. All this information is crucial to understand what happened and what we can do to help prevent future entanglements.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Trump Administration Advances First Offshore Critical Minerals Lease Sale Under New Marine Minerals Agency

July 17, 2026 — The Trump administration has taken another step toward launching a U.S. offshore critical minerals industry, with the newly created Marine Minerals Administration (MMA) releasing a proposed leasing notice that could lead to the first federal deep-sea mineral lease sale in U.S. waters.

The proposal covers federal waters off American Samoa and marks one of the first major regulatory actions by the MMA since the Trump administration announced plans in April to merge the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) into a single offshore regulator.

The proposed lease sale is part of the administration’s broader effort to secure domestic supplies of critical minerals—including nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese—that are widely used in batteries, defense systems and advanced manufacturing while reducing dependence on Chinese-controlled supply chains.

“Critical minerals have become a strategic asset in global competition, and China’s dominance in the supply of many of these materials creates unacceptable risks for America’s energy, defense and manufacturing sectors,” Acting MMA Director Matt Giacona said.

Read the full article at gCaptain

Humpback whale disentangled off coast of Massachusetts

June 16, 2026 — The Center for Coastal Studies disentangled a humpback whale Sunday afternoon off the coast of Massachusetts.

The young whale was anchored in fishing gear in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and was freed by the center’s Marine Animal Entanglement Response team.

While the whale sustained some injuries from the entanglement, the team feels reasonably confident that it will recover, according to a release from the Center for Coastal Studies.

Late Sunday morning, recreational boaters reported a relatively small whale struggling in the buoy line of fishing gear.

The boaters reported the sighting to the U.S. Coast Guard, who contacted the NOAA Fisheries and the Center for Coastal Studies hotlines.

The Massachusetts Environmental Police were on patrol nearby and volunteered to stand by the whale while the response team attempted the disentanglement during a very short window of calm seas. TowBoatUS overheard the report and offered to stand by.

Read the full article at The Inquirer and Mirror

OREGON: Humpback tangled in fishing gear spotted near Oregon coast

May 18, 2026 — A humpback whale entangled in fishing gear was spotted Friday west of Winchester Bay, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said Wednesday.

Justin Ainsworth, a marine resources program manager with the state agency, said in an email that the gear has a commercial crab buoy tag, but its owner hasn’t been identified because officials haven’t been able to make out the vessel name and permit number.

The whale, Ainsworth said, “appeared to be in good health and was quite mobile.”

He said the National Marine Fisheries Service is ultimately responsible for “gear attributions and entanglement accounting,” but that he expects the gear to be linked to the Oregon commercial Dungeness crab fishery. If that’s the case, he said, it would be the second confirmed humpback entanglement in fishery gear in 2026.

Read the full article at the Seattle Times

How the humpback whale made a massive comeback in the Salish Sea

May 13, 2026 — ABOARD THE MOLLY B, on the Salish sea – They are big. They are beautiful. And they are back.

The return of the humpback whale to greater numbers than observed in decades is part of a larger revival of marine mammals in the Salish Sea. It is an astonishing sight of life rebounding, with exception of the endangered southern residents orcas.

On a recent day in the waters of the San Juan Islands, pink salmon were jumping, and masses of sea birds were feasting on forage fish. Baby seals lazed alongside their mothers on the rocks, too sleepy to be bothered by a boat quietly chuffing by. The quick dives of harbor porpoise, with their tiny dorsal, knifed the water. Minke whales, too, sliced the surface.

It’s in these conditions the humpbacks have made a spectacular recovery at about 8% a year.

Until about the 1910s humpback whales were common, but then they were hunted to near extinction by commercial whaling.

“You never saw them,” said Joe Gaydos, science director for the SeaDoc Society, a science and education nonprofit based on Orcas Island. “Now they are showing up in places where they had not been seen since the 1900s. Now we see them willy-nilly, spring, summer, fall, winter.”

It’s a reminder, Gaydos said, of the difference policies to protect and preserve animals and their habitat can make.

Read the full article at the Bellingham Herald

 

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