Saving Seafood

Gulf of Maine haddock quota stalled as boats near tying up

February 23, 2026 — For commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Maine, spring typically means fresh haddock.

It’s the time of year when the fish show up thick, boats can finally make steady trips, and crews start to see paychecks that carry them through the lean months. But this year, instead of chasing the fish, Gulf of Maine (GOM) groundfishermen are waiting and watching their quota meters hit zero.

Framework 69, the regulatory vehicle that would increase the GOM haddock quota by 50 percent due to assessments of the stock, is stuck in federal review at NOAA’s level, despite being approved by the New England Fishery Management Council and signed on Dec. 4, 2024.

In the meantime, boats are nearing the limit of haddock they’re legally allowed to land.

“We were, for instance, four weeks ago, on track at the current quota level to be out of Gulf of Maine haddock quota right around the end of this year,” said Hank Soule, manager of the Sustainable Harvest Sector. New England sectors are self-managed groups of commercial fishing vessels holding limited access permits for Northeast multispecies (groundfish), including haddock.

“Right now, we’re on track to run out of Gulf of Maine haddock quota by late March,” said Soule. For groundfishing, that means a year reset on May 1, which is beyond devastating to fishermen.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

MAINE: Maine’s aquaculture industry highlighted in new campaign for public education

February 20, 2026 — The Maine Farmed Seafood Coalition (MFSC), a Maine-based community program for sustainability, recently launched a campaign called “Maine Farmers Are Why,” intended to educate the public about Maine aquaculture in light of recent sea farming disputes across the state’s coastal regions.

“The campaign puts sea farmers at the front of the conversation and tells the stories of innovators who make a diversified living on the coast of Maine,” MFSC said in a release.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: What warming waters could mean for Maine’s fishing economy

February 10, 2026 — Fishing is a major part of Maine’s economy, with commercial fisheries generating about $709 million in 2024, according to state data. But what happens when a warming climate begins to collide with business?

Scientists consider the Gulf of Maine to be one of the fastest-warming ocean regions in the world — and changing conditions have already reshaped parts of the industry.

In Maine, warming waters have contributed to long-term declines in northern shrimp populations. Shrimp fisheries in the Gulf of Maine have been closed for more than a decade, after regulators imposed a moratorium on shrimping — a ban that has now been extended until 2028.

And it’s not just shrimp.

Graham Sherwood, a senior scientist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, says warming waters could begin to affect Maine’s billion-dollar lobster industry, even as the fishery remains strong today.

Marketplace’s Sabri Ben-Achour spoke with Sherwood. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Read the full article at Marketplace

What zooplankton can teach us about a changing Gulf of Maine

February 10, 2026 — Karen Stamieszkin, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, was out on the Gulf of Maine three years ago when she saw red pooling in different directions beneath the waves: a large spring bloom of plankton.

“You could see these plumes of this fat, rich copepod population right at the surface,” said Stamieszkin, referring to a type of tiny crustacean. “That is what drives the Gulf of Maine’s iconic fisheries.”

She was examining the masses of an organism that plays a central role in the Gulf of Maine’s ecosystem, feeding on plant-like plankton and then transferring that energy up the food chain, thereby fueling the region’s cod, herring, and tuna populations.

Read the full article at Seacoastonline 

Trump vows to ‘unleash’ commercial fishing off New England, reversing Obama-era Atlantic restrictions

February 9, 2026 — President Donald Trump said he issued a presidential proclamation reopening thousands of square miles of protected Atlantic Ocean waters off New England to commercial fishing, saying the move would reestablish fishing access and reduce what he called burdensome restrictions on fishermen.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social late Friday, writing that the move was “another BIG WIN for Maine, and all of New England.”

The proclamation would reestablish fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the New England coast, a nearly 5,000-square-mile preserve east of Cape Cod that was created by former President Barack Obama. Trump rolled back protections in the area during his first term, and President Joe Biden later restored them.

Read the full article at Fox News

MAINE: Maine opens lottery for elver licenses

January 28, 2026 — Maine officials opened a lottery Monday giving 20 residents a chance to enter the state’s elver fishery before the 2026 season begins.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources began accepting lottery entries at noon Jan. 26. The process will run through 4:30 p.m. Feb. 20. Winners will then have the opportunity to apply for one of the available elver harvesting licenses ahead of the season, which is set to run from March 22 through June 7, or until the statewide quota is reached.

The U.S. elver fishery, which targets juvenile American eels, has existed since the 1970s but expanded significantly in the late 1990s, with Maine at the forefront. Until 2023, nearly all harvested elvers were sold to buyers in Asia, where they were raised to market size and then exported back to the U.S. and other countries. Recently, a small domestic market has been growing.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Judge dismisses PETA lawsuit targeting the Maine Lobster Festival

January 28, 2026 — A lawsuit brought by animal rights activist organization PETA against the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, Maine, U.S.A., was dismissed on 26 January.

In the lawsuit, filed 28 July 2025, the group asked the court to declare the festival a public nuisance. Additionally, PETA claimed the festival made an “unavoidable spectacle out of cruelty to animals” and asked the judge to issue a permanent injunction prohibiting the steaming of live lobsters on public lands. 

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Maine opens lottery for 20 new elver licenses

January 27, 2026 — Twenty Mainers will soon have a chance to join the state’s lucrative elver fishery.

The Department of Marine Resources (DMR) says it will hold a lottery, starting at noon on Monday for the right to apply for an elver license.

The lottery will be available through 4:30 p.m. on February 20, providing lottery winners with the chance to apply for a license prior to the upcoming season, which starts at noon on March 22 and runs through noon on June 7.

The DMR says the lottery is available to Maine residents who are at least 15 years of age by the start of the 2026 season, and who are eligible to purchase an elver license in 2026 because they have not had their right to obtain an elver license suspended.

Read the full article at WGME

$30M for right whale research could also help lobster industry

January 21, 2026 — A congressional funding bill contains $30 million for research and monitoring related to the North Atlantic right whale, an endangered species closely tied to the regulation of the lobster industry in Maine and other New England states.

The money is designated for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which oversees state-regulated fisheries.

North Atlantic right whales are one of the world’s most at-risk species, approaching extinction. Threats include entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes and climate change.

The money is part of the fiscal year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations bill that passed the U.S. Senate last week, previously approved by the House of Representatives and now heading to President Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

“This funding will support Maine’s lobster industry by improving the incomplete and imprecise science and research upon which the federal government relies,” said U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the appropriations committee.

Read the full article at Mainebiz

Maine Sea Grant and University of Maine Announce $2 million in new NOAA awards to support innovative American lobster research and outreach

January 20, 2026 — The Maine Sea Grant Program at the University of Maine is pleased to announce its receipt of $1.4 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), awarded to support research and outreach activities of the NOAA Sea Grant-funded American Lobster Initiative.

With this new four-year award, Maine Sea Grant and its regional partners will support collaborative research to address complex challenges facing the American lobster fishery. The initiative will also synthesize research findings so they are accessible and actionable for fishermen, policymakers and the public, and support place-based technical assistance within the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and Southern New England region.

The full $2 million in NOAA funding also includes $600,000 in second-year support for four 2025-26 American lobster research awards.

The American lobster (Homarus americanus) is among the nation’s most valuable fisheries, with approximately 113 million pounds landed in 2024, valued at $715 million. The industry supports thousands of Maine families across the fishing and seafood supply chain and faces growing uncertainty driven by environmental and market change. This underscores the need for collaborative research to understand how lobsters are responding to changing conditions and how best to sustain the fishery.

Since 2019, Sea Grant’s NOAA-funded American Lobster Initiative (ALI) has worked to close critical knowledge gaps about this iconic species, strengthening the fishery’s resilience to biological, economic and social impacts of ecosystem change. The program has funded 40 projects to date and supports a national research competition alongside a regionally coordinated extension network to ensure that communities across the region benefit from these investments.

“This new federal investment in lobster research is terrific news for Maine’s fishermen, marine researchers, and coastal communities, and it underscores why I advocated so strongly for the restoration of Maine Sea Grant’s funding last year. The research efforts led by Maine Sea Grant help inform policy makers and support our working waterfronts, strengthening Maine’s blue economy and helping to ensure that our state’s fisheries remain sustainable and competitive for generations to come,” said U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.

With the new $1.4 million award, Maine Sea Grant will begin to administer the initiative’s competitive research competition, which was previously administered by the NOAA National Sea Grant Program.

Read the full article at the University of Maine