Saving Seafood

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

El Niño could bring highest sea levels ever recorded to CA coast

August 11, 2026 — A strengthening El Niño could bring the highest sea levels ever recorded to the California coast this year, raising the risk of widespread and damaging flooding.

It’s the latest effect forecast for what’s expected to be an historically strong event, one forecasters warn could also lash Southern California with powerful rain and broil both land and sea with punishing heat waves.

“We’re expecting likely the highest sea levels ever recorded on the California coast associated with this event,” said Mark Merrifield, director of the UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Center for Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation.

During a recent online town hall, Merrifield presented a NASA satellite image showing sea levels already more than half a foot higher in the eastern Pacific Ocean compared to the reference state, and said by this fall and winter, “we should be seeing sea levels far above the average seasonal cycle.”

According to NASA, El Niño’s warmer ocean water displaces colder water close to the sea surface. Warmer water causes a rise in the sea surface height because water expands as temperature rises.

Data collected by scientists over the years also have shown how El Niños contribute to “enormously strong” waves, which can cause beaches to “erode and to narrow,” Merrifield said. “It’s well documented that during El Niño events, beaches across the entire state tend to move landward by about 30 meters [98 feet] or so.”

Read the full article at the Seattle Times

NOAA scientists set sail on landmark West Coast Ocean Acidification survey

July 21, 2026 — The following was released by the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

On July 20, 2026, researchers embarked on the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program’s West Coast Ocean Acidification mission (WCOA 2026). Departing from San Diego aboard the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (R/V) Sikuliaq, the team will travel north to Washington, adding important new observations to NOAA’s long-term monitoring of ocean acidification and its impacts on marine resources.

WCOA 2026 will couple ocean chemistry, biology, and physics to build a more comprehensive view of how extreme events impact biogeochemistry and ecosystems.

“Results from past WCOA cruises have provided novel insights into acidification rates and impacts in coastal and estuary habitats that provide our nation with rich fish and shellfish resources,” said Dr. Simone Alin, Supervisory Oceanographer, NOAA/PMEL. Resource managers and harvesters can use this information to inform fisheries management decisions.

This intensive 30-day coastal research cruise aboard the 261-foot research vessel offers scientists a unique opportunity of sampling during an El Niño that is on track to become one of the strongest on record. El Niño brings warmer water and can alter upwelling and precipitation patterns in the region. Phytoplankton and zooplankton communities will follow these warmer waters, which impacts food webs and fisheries as seen during past marine heatwaves.

Two days after the Sikuliaq departs, the PMEL SeaTrac will head south from Washington to collect added coastal measurements during peak ocean acidification and hypoxia season and pick up any El Niño signal that may have made to the northern California Current System this summer. These OA cruises provide critical high-quality data for the U.S. Coastal Large Marine Ecosystems, and are essential for modeling and forecasting changes in ocean acidification and hypoxia to better prepare for future impacts to valued fisheries and ecosystems.

Led by researchers at the University of Washington’s Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, & Ecosystem Studies and PMEL, researchers will collect high-quality ocean chemistry data, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and other observations. Scientists will also collect environmental DNA, which can reveal the diversity and abundance of ocean life in different ocean conditions.

Data collected during WCOA 2026 are essential for validating models and forecasts of ocean conditions like J-SCOPE. This short term (six to nine month) forecast is used for the California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment. High quality ocean carbon chemistry data is required to forecast the saturation state of calcium carbonate, the mineral building block used by shellfish like Dungeness crabs, clams, and oysters.

Other coordinated regular coastal fisheries surveys, including the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) enhance the impact of WCOA 2026. By conducting biological net tows at established stations, researchers will gain high-quality data on marine life.

Ultimately, the data collected through WCOA 2026 will serve as a foundational benchmark for monitoring, modeling and research in the region. These data will provide calibration information for sensor networks designed to fill measurement gaps between research cruises. With the potential for sampling to occur as ocean conditions change with El Niño, NOAA and our partners will be able to better understand how extreme conditions alter vital marine resources like Dungeness crabs, krill, plankton and other fisheries.

Sullivan reintroduces sweeping bill targeting bycatch, seafloor impacts

July 8, 2026 — U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) has reintroduced the Bycatch Reduction Act, legislation that would expand federal efforts to reduce bycatch, limit seafloor impacts from trawl gear, improve fisheries monitoring and increase transparency in fishery management.

According to Sullivan’s office, the bill builds on recommendations from the Alaska Salmon Task Force, which was created through legislation he authored and signed into law in 2022.

The proposal would establish new standards and monitoring requirements designed to keep both midwater and bottom trawl nets off the seafloor, require proven salmon excluder devices on pollock vessels, invest in salmon tagging and genetic sampling, expand ecosystem research, and create a new flume tank testing facility to evaluate fishing gear under simulated ocean conditions. The bill also would reauthorize NOAA’s Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program and encourage fishermen to test new gear and technologies aimed at reducing bycatch and habitat impacts.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman