June 9, 2025 — U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick vowed to protect and support Maine lobster during a hearing on his department’s budget plans, while suggesting that Maine lobster processed in Canada would likely be unaffected by new tariffs.
“This administration views the Maine lobster industry as an American treasure, and we need to protect it,” Lutnick told lawmakers during a 4 June budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
June 4, 2025 — The Maine Dept. of Marine Resources and the University of Maine Pelagic Fisheries Lab run by Dr. Walt Golet are working on a study to quantify the potential overlap between the commercial Atlantic bluefin tuna fishery and proposed offshore wind areas in the Gulf of Maine.
At this time, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has finalized 5 lease areas in the Gulf of Maine for offshore wind. While many of the US East Coast offshore wind projects are paused, under review, or in some cases postponed indefinitely, the future of offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine remains unknown at this time. This actually creates an opportunity to establish important baseline data in support of the US bluefin tuna fishery should development ever continue and things like mitigation measures be needed.
June 4, 2025 — Each spring, fishermen set nets in Maine’s rivers to fish for the state’s most valuable catch. No, not the iconic lobster, but tiny glass eels that fetch wholesale prices topping $2,000 per pound. Those baby eels, each two to three inches long, aren’t destined for dinner yet. Instead, they’re bought by aquaculture farms in Asia and grown to maturity in tanks; each pound of glass eels yields about 1,250 pounds of adult eels. Those adult eels are then sold back to the American market.
To Sara Rademaker, a marine educator with a degree in fisheries and aquaculture, the system didn’t make any sense: “Why don’t we just grow our fish in our own community?” she asked. In 2014, she launched American Unagi, North America’s first large-scale, land-based eel aquafarm. It started as a small, home-based operation but quickly grew. “We had 7,000 [glass eels], and then we jumped to 50,000 — and then 500,000.”
June 3, 2025 –A new seasonal forecast developed by NOAA scientists predicts cooler bottom-water temperatures across the Gulf of Maine this spring and summer, making a notable shift for one of the fastest-warming ocean regions in the world.
The experimental outlook, released as part of NOAA Fisheries’ 2025 New England State of the Ecosystems Report, points to a southward movement of the eastern Gulf Stream and a potential influx of cooler Labrador Slope and Scotian Shelf waters as key drivers behind the recent trend. As a result, scientists expect bottom temperatures in the Gulf to be between 0.9 and 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than average.
“The cooling trend from the Labrador Shelf region is significant and could have important effects on local marine ecosystems and fisheries,” said Vincent Saba, a research fishery biologist at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.
May 28, 2025 — Cold water flowing into the the Gulf of Maine from Canada’s Maritimes region this spring and summer could have a positive impact on key seafood species whose U.S. populations have plummeted due to climate change-induced warming waters, according to new NOAA research.
Data shows that since late 2023, a shift in the eastern Gulf Stream has helped chill bottom-water temperatures in the Northwest Atlantic, which could result in an influx of cold water into northernmost New England. Researchers from the agency’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center say flows from Canada’s Labrador Slope and Scotian Shelf could result in the Gulf of Maine being 0.9 to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the summer average.
The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest-warming ocean regions in the world, according to NOAA, where rising water temperatures have spurred migration of lobster and other fish species toward Canadian waters in the Bay of Fundy. The result has been a steep dropoff in southern New England’s lobster economy to the benefit of lobstermen in the Gulf of Maine.
May 19, 2025 — As the Trump administration continues to reshape federal policy, a recent executive order targeting the U.S. fishing industry is making waves along Maine’s coast.
The order, which seeks to ease regulations and promote domestic seafood production, is drawing both support and concern from those closely tied to the industry.
May 14, 2025 — If you have ever experienced an alewife migration, you know it is a true Maine experience that you must see to believe. As temperatures warm in Maine, alewives are beginning their remarkable migration into the Gulf of Maine. These small but mighty fish face new challenges as climate patterns shift.
“I love alewives, I think they are the most important fish in the sea and the river and the lake,” says Zach Whitener, Research Associate at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. “When you see them scurrying up their brooks, they’ll swim on their side through half an inch of water. They are such determined to get where they want to go.”
Alewives join several species including blueback herring, American shad, and Atlantic salmon that migrate from ocean to freshwater. “These are anadromous fish, which means they live in the ocean as adults, but they spawn in freshwater,” Whitener explains. “In freshwater, the fish don’t have much competition as juveniles.”
After feeding in the ocean for three to four years, these fish return to their birthplace to spawn in the same lakes where they were hatched.
The Gulf of Maine serves as a “grocery store for most of the North Atlantic,” but climate change is creating complex challenges for migrating fish.
May 12, 2025 — Maine lobstermen once held more than 7,000 commercial licenses, but now about half many actively fish for Maine’s most valuable catch.
The decline has occurred since the late 1990s as Maine’s commercial fishing industry, which is dominated by lobstermen, faces increasing challenges in the form of climate change, increased regulation and competition for space in the Gulf of Maine.
While the drop has been gradual, its effects could be far-reaching, given lobstermen’s central role in Maine’s coastal economy and their political might in both Augusta and Washington D.C.
On the local level, declining numbers of lobstermen could take away a key economic support for Maine towns and businesses that rely on the fishery.
May 11, 2025 — Virginia Olsen has pulled lobsters from Maine’s chilly Atlantic waters for decades while watching threats to the state’s lifeblood industry mount.
Trade imbalances with Canada, tight regulations on fisheries and offshore wind farms towering like skyscrapers on open water pose three of those threats, said Olsen, part of the fifth generation in her family to make a living in the lobster trade.
That’s why she was encouraged last month when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that promises to restore American fisheries to their former glory. The order promises to shred fishing regulations, and Olsen said that will allow fishermen to do what they do best — fish.
That will make a huge difference in communities like her home of Stonington, the busiest lobster fishing port in the country, Olsen said. It’s a tiny island town of winding streets, swooping gulls and mansard roof houses with an economy almost entirely dependent on commercial fishing, some three hours up the coast from Portland, Maine’s biggest city.
Olsen knows firsthand how much has changed over the years. Hundreds of fish and shellfish populations globally have dwindled to dangerously low levels, alarming scientists and prompting the restrictions and catch limits that Trump’s order could wash away with the stroke of a pen. But she’s heartened that the livelihoods of people who work the traps and cast the nets have become a priority in faraway places where they often felt their voices weren’t heard.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News
May 8, 2025 — As part of the Trump’s administration’s effort to expand fossil fuel production in the United States, the Department of the Interior announced recently that it would accelerate the permitting process for a range of energy sources and seek new oil and gas lease sales in offshore waters, including in the Gulf of Maine.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said the permitting changes — which speed up review under the National Environmental Policy and Endangered Species Acts, among others — would cut what is often a multi-year review process down to several weeks.
Environmental groups and Maine lawmakers decried the moves while oil and gas industry representatives celebrated them. Days later, a group of New England Senators, including Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, introduced legislation to ban offshore drilling in waters throughout New England.
“The waters off Maine’s coast provide a healthy ecosystem for our fisheries and are an integral part of our tourism industry, supporting thousands of jobs and generating billions of dollars in revenue each year,” said Collins in a statement. “Offshore drilling along the coast could impact Mainers of all walks of life for generations.”