Saving Seafood

Mass. pushes feds for May 1 groundfish season start

April 17, 2025 — Massachusetts is calling on federal regulators to act swiftly to ensure the 2025 commercial groundfish season opens on time. On April 15, Tom O’Shea, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick urging immediate regulatory action to authorize the May 1 start date.

“Without fishing measures, federal fishing vessels from ports of Gloucester south to New Bedford will be tied up with no opportunity to sustain their businesses,” O’Shea wrote in the letter.

The Northeast multispecies (groundfish) fishery is jointly managed by NOAA Fisheries and the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) under the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. The plan governs thirteen species, including iconic New England stocks like Atlantic cod, haddock, halibut, and winter flounder. However, to legally land and possess these fish, federal regulations must be in place to start the fishing year on May 1.

If the Department of Commerce does not act in time, federal groundfish vessels in Massachusetts will be effectively shut out of the fishery, causing serious economic disruptions across the state’s fishing ports. “The impacts will be particularly acute in Gloucester, New Bedford, and Boston, where our federal groundfish permit holders are concentrated,” the Department of Fish and Game warned in a separate briefing.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS: Moulton gets an earful from fishing industry

February 21, 2025 — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Salem, got an earful from representatives of the 402-year-old seaport’s fishing industry about the uncertainty and opportunity amid a sea change in Washington, D.C., with the month-old Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency filleting certain federal agencies.

Moulton sat in a conference room of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association in Blackburn Center with Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game Deputy Commissioner Sefatia Romeo Theken leading a discussion among local fishing industry representatives, including about a dozen commercial lobstermen and fishermen, seafood processors and industry advocates.

Read the full article at Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: State lawmakers eye new office to look at wind impacts on fisheries

July 29, 2020 — House lawmakers unanimously backed the idea of creating a new office within the Department of Fish and Game to specifically study the impacts of offshore wind infrastructure on marine fisheries and ocean life.

In a consolidated amendment adopted Tuesday as part of its economic development bill, the House proposes an Office of Renewable Energy Fishery Impacts that would “conduct and foster research concerning the impacts of offshore wind energy infrastructure on marine fisheries including effects of such installations and connections on the health and behavior of marine mammals; (ii) accept and review commentary from representatives of impacted fishing fleets and renewable energy operators or providers; and (iii) educate and inform citizens on matters related to offshore wind energy and associated impacts on marine life.”

The office would also function as a liaison to federal agencies and academic institutions.

The text in the consolidated amendment mirrors an amendment originally filed by Rep. William Straus of Mattapoisett.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Massachusetts: 4 Local Communities Receive State Habitat Improvement Grants

January 4, 2018 — BOSTON — Four local communities have been awarded funding from the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife’s Habitat Management Grant program to protect natural resources.

Barnstable, Mashpee, Nantucket and Yarmouth will receive a total of almost $78,000 towards habitat improvement projects.

Barnstable ($10,000), Mashpee ($24,000) and Yarmouth ($25,000) were awarded funding for prescribed burns to improve pitch pine and oak woodland habitats. Nantucket will use the $18,997 in funds to manage heathlands on the Head of the Plains properties.

Read the full story at CapeCod

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Cape Cod boaters asked to use caution due to presence of extremely endangered right whales

April 17, 2017 — Boaters have been urged by officials with the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) to use extreme caution when enjoying the waters of Cape Cod.

According to a statement released by the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game on Friday, an unusually large amount of endangered North Atlantic right whales have been observed in the bay area.

The right whale, which is known to congregate and feed near the bay on an annual basis, is a species of whale so endangered that their entire population is only about 500 animals, the statement says.

An aerial survey conducted on April 12 by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies showed that roughly 163 of those whales were present in the Cape Cod Bay, meaning that some 30 percent of the known population of the species was sighted in the same bay on a single day.

“Aggregations of this magnitude have never been observed in Cape Cod Bay before,” said Gronendyke.

Boat owners have been urged to “proceed with extreme caution” and to reduce speed to less than 10 knots.

Read the full story at MassLive.com