Saving Seafood

Trump administration promises to make U.S. ‘dominant seafood leader’

July 7, 2026 — Advocates for the U.S scallop fleet hailed President Trump’s declaration of a “National Scallops Day” July 2, leading a list of NOAA Fisheries actions the administration says are aimed to “stabilize markets, improve access, enhance economic profitability, and prevent closures.”

Measures for the lucrative Northeast and Mid-Atlantic scallop fishery headed priorities announced by NOAA Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler. The changes will open the Northern Edge of Georges Bank to the scallop fleet, and advance “permit stacking” on scallop vessels, two reforms the industry’s Sustainable Scallop Fund has sought for years.

“Permit stacking will let scallop permit holders consolidate operations, cut costs, and fish more safely and efficiently. Opening the Northern Edge returns the fleet to a productive, well-managed resource that has stayed closed for years,” the group says.

“We are grateful to President Trump and his team for listening to the men and women of the scallop fleet and acting on their behalf,” said SSF president John Lees. “Permit stacking and Northern Edge access will make our fishery more competitive, more sustainable, and more valuable to the American families who depend on it. This is what it looks like when Washington puts American fishermen first.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

President Trump Declares ‘National Scallops Day’ as NOAA Prioritizes Opening Northern Edge and Permit Stacking

July 2, 2026— President Donald Trump declared “National Scallops Day,” tying the designation to a NOAA Fisheries announcement that the agency has prioritized expanding access for the Atlantic sea scallop fleet on the Northern Edge of Georges Bank and advancing a long-sought permit-stacking policy.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the action would “open up the Northern Edge of Georges Bank to Scallops Fishing,” predicting “millions more pounds” of wild scallops for American consumers and more jobs in East Coast fishing ports, including New Bedford, Massachusetts; Cape May, New Jersey; and Norfolk, Virginia. This comes as part of a broader Trump Administration effort to expand domestic seafood production and reverse restrictions imposed by prior administrations.  

The President’s statement came the same day NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler released a region-by-region list of regulatory priorities under Executive Order 14276, “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness.” In the New England section of that announcement, NOAA listed two major scallop actions: “Implement rotational access for the Northern Edge scallop fishery” and “Implement Scallop Permit Stacking.” Administrator Piñeiro Soler described them as “regulatory actions we have prioritized.” 

The April 2025 executive order directed the Commerce Department and NOAA Fisheries to work with regional fishery management councils to reduce regulatory burdens, increase domestic seafood production, improve access, stabilize markets, and enhance profitability for U.S. fishing businesses. NOAA said Thursday it received input from 787 individuals and organizations before prioritizing the actions announced by Piñeiro Soler.  

“The Fisheries Survival Fund, which has represented Atlantic scallop fishermen since 1998, has been working throughout the Executive Order process to reopen the Northern Edge. We very much appreciate President Trump’s and NOAA’s directive to NMFS and the Council to reopen this historically vital fishing ground after 35 years,” stated Eric Hansen, chairman of the Fund’s board.  “We will work hard to help make a productive, responsible opening become a reality. To the fleet, please be aware the area is not currently open, but we are thankful the process has begun.”

The Sustainable Scalloping Fund, a scallop industry group active in Washington and New Bedford, praised the announcement, saying the opening of the Northern Edge and the move toward permit stacking were two reforms it had sought since its inception.

“Permit stacking will let scallop permit holders consolidate operations, cut costs, and fish more safely and efficiently,” the group said in a statement. “Opening the Northern Edge returns the fleet to a productive, well-managed resource that has stayed closed for years.”

SSF President John Lees said the decision reflected direct engagement between fishermen and the White House. The group said Lees had carried the issues to senior White House officials and advocated for them directly with the president.

“We are grateful to President Trump and his team for listening to the men and women of the scallop fleet and acting on their behalf,” Lees said. “Permit stacking and Northern Edge access will make our fishery more competitive, more sustainable, and more valuable to the American families who depend on it. This is what it looks like when Washington puts American fishermen first.”

The Northern Edge of Georges Bank has been the subject of a long-running debate within New England fisheries management. The New England Fishery Management Council previously considered a framework action that would have revised habitat management restrictions and created rotational scallop access areas in the region. Council materials described the Northern Edge as roughly including the Closed Area II Habitat Management Area and the adjacent Northern Flank of Georges Bank, and said the habitat restrictions there were intended to minimize fishing impacts on essential fish habitat for multiple species, including scallops, groundfish, herring, monkfish and skates.  

Council materials also reflected concerns that opening the area could affect long-term scallop yield because dense scallop aggregations on the Northern Edge may serve as a larval source for other scallop grounds, including the Southern Flank of Georges Bank, the Great South Channel and Nantucket Lightship.  

NOAA’s announcement did not provide a detailed schedule for implementation, catch projections, or final management measures for the Northern Edge or permit stacking. Piñeiro Soler said some priorities may implicate other statutory requirements and that NOAA Fisheries would work with the councils to determine how to advance them.  

RHODE ISLAND: These fish look like Jabba the Hutt. Now, RI kids are eating monkfish at school.

April 14, 2025 — There’s nothing about a monkfish’s appearance that makes you want to eat it.

With a bulbous head, bulging eyes, oversized mouth and sluglike body that can grow more than four feet long, it’s basically the Jabba the Hutt of the ocean.

But this slimy, bottom-dwelling monstrosity sometimes called goosefish, devilfish or fishing frog is known to seafood afficionados for firm, sweet tail meat that makes for a tasty meal.

Read the full article at Providence Journal

Monkfish are there- fishermen say the science is missing them

January 20, 2026 — If no one catches fish in the ocean, are they still there? Commercial fishermen say yes, but fisheries science has been saying otherwise.

The disconnect between what fishermen experience on the water and the information regulators use to manage stocks has always been a bugaboo, but it’s a particular problem when it comes to monkfish.

Since scientists can’t age monkfish, they tie the total allowable landings to an incomplete federal survey and fishermen’s landings over the last few years – which plummeted during COVID when the markets shut down.

When fishermen began targeting the ugly, yet delicious, big-mouthed fish again, they were faced with drastic cuts because the stock assessment model assumed there were less fish because landings were down.

Seeing the problem, Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance teamed up with School for Marine Science and Technology at UMass Dartmouth and commercial fishermen to use a competitive federal grant program to better incorporate fishermen’s effort into the stock assessment.

“Our goal for this project was to provide a way to expand the the stock assessment model to include fishing effort,” said Melissa Sanderson, chief operating office at Fishermen’s Alliance, who noted that local gillnet fishermen have told her that they are less likely to target monkfish when prices are low or when the skates clog up the nets excluding the monks.  “Because monkfish landings are low, the amount fishermen are allowed to harvest keeps going down.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: Homely fish makes for hearty holiday feast

December 21, 2023 — Monkfish stew will be featured on the menu of Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program’s annual holiday supper Saturday, Dec. 23. This is the third year running that Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, a Brunswick-based nonprofit, will donate 50-60 servings worth to feed the community.

Monkfish, a groundfish whose appearance has earned it the nicknames “frogfish” and “sea-devil,” wouldn’t be most people’s first choice off the menu. Not unexpectedly, they’re hard for fishermen to sell. That has been changing over the past few years, thanks in large part to the fishermen’s association.

In 2020, the association started a program called Fishermen Feeding Mainers to buy local fishermen’s catch of groundfish such as hake, flounder, cod, haddock, pollock and monkfish, and donate it to food pantries, schools and community organizations. Groundfish, or fish that spend the majority of their lives on the ocean floor, can be caught using gillnets, a method that avoids damaging the seabed and reduces bycatch.

Over the past three years, Fishermen Feeding Mainers has put $1.2 million into the fishing industry, funded by a mixture of grants, donation and foundation support, and COVID relief funds — yielding 650,000 pounds of groundfish that MCFA has then brought to local tables.

“Some of the feedback we got when we first started donating fish was that it was tricky to know how to prepare monkfish,” said Susan Olcott, operations director at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. “It’s a little bit different in its texture than some of the flaky white fish people are more familiar with, like cod or haddock. So, we decided to make something easy to serve to introduce people to monkfish — and that led to the stew.”

MCFA now sells thousands of packages of monkfish stew every year, made with Maine monkfish by Hurricane Premium Soups and Chowders in Greene, with proceeds benefitting the Fishermen Feeding Mainers program.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

NOAA, Cornell Cooperative Extension hope to reboot market for monkfish

April 8, 2023 — From the first time television chef Julia Child hoisted a whole, ugly monkfish in front of her audience, early successes in marketing “the poor man’s lobster” showed how creative culinary and marketing campaigns could boost underutilized U.S. fisheries.

Now, a newly formed collaborative program aims to again boost U.S. domestic demand for monkfish – a stock at high population levels, and accessible close to home for Atlantic fishermen. Extending from Maine to New Jersey, it’s a regional push to “expand the audience and the markets that monkfish can fill,” said Tara McClintock, a fisheries specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Marine Extension Service in New York.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Monkfish: Council Takes Final Action on Fishing Year 2023-2025 Specifications/Measures; Revises Research Set-Aside Priorities

January 26, 2023 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council voted on a package of measures during its January 2023 meeting that set the stage for how the monkfish fishery will operate during the 2023-2025 fishing years.

The measures were developed through Framework Adjustment 13 to the Monkfish Fishery Management Plan and include the following:

• Acceptable biological catches (ABCs) and other specifications for both the Northern and Southern Monkfish Fishery Management Areas (see map on page 2);

• Days-at-sea allocations and a days-at-sea usage cap for both the northern and southern areas; and

• A 12″ minimum mesh size requirement for monkfish gillnets with implementation delayed until 2026.

The monkfish fishery is managed jointly between the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils. The New England Council has the administrative lead, but joint management means both Councils must vote on new measures before an action can be submitted to NOAA Fisheries for review, approval, and implementation. The Mid-Atlantic Council will discuss and vote on Framework 13 on February 7, 2023.

The New England Council also revised its 2023-2024 priorities for the Monkfish Research Set-Aside (RSA) Program during the January meeting in Portsmouth, NH.

Read the full release here

 

Council Seeks Applicants for All 2023-2025 Advisory Panels; Wide Range of Monkfish, Groundfish, Rec Fishermen Needed

July 25, 2022 — The following was released by New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council is accepting applications from commercial and recreational fishermen, as well as other stakeholders, to serve on its advisory panels (APs) for the next three years. The term runs from January 2023 through December 2025. The application deadline is August 31, 2022.

The Council currently has nine active advisory panels that cover issues related to groundfish, recreational fishing for groundfish, Atlantic sea scallops, Atlantic herring, monkfish, habitat, skates, whiting, and enforcement.

The Council jointly manages monkfish and spiny dogfish with the Mid-Atlantic Council. The Mid-Atlantic Council has the administrative lead for spiny dogfish and handles the advisory panel solicitation for that fishery, while the New England Council has the administrative lead for monkfish and conducts the Monkfish AP solicitation.

The Council strives to populate its advisory panels with members who: (1) have different areas of expertise; (2) use different gear types; (3) come from the full geographic range of the fishery; and (4) have varied social and economic perspectives.

Read the full release here

New England waters are teeming with fish species. The problem is we eat too few of them.

June 22, 2022 — Jared Auerbach stands with a box of monkfish livers at his feet. They are pale pink and streaked with blood, each one packed in plastic and nestled on ice.

Behind him on the processing floor at the Boston Fish Pier, an ice machine releases an avalanche of cubes at two-minute intervals. Dozens of gloved and aproned workers mill about, offloading, packing, and filleting. They work with the usual suspects: blue mesh bags of oysters, live scallops, and lobsters with banded claws in plastic crates.

But plenty of other local species fill the floor. There’s the monkfish, of course, plus a box of conch. There are halibut bellies and skate wings and whole black sea bass.

“On our busiest day, we unloaded 376 different boats,” says Auerbach, who founded fish distributor Red’s Best in 2008 to connect fishermen with wholesalers and retailers. He deals that catch around the world — to buyers as close as the Boston Public Market and as far as South Korea.

The shellfish stand a good chance of staying within New England, he says, finding a home at a local restaurant or fish market. But the finfish may still have a long journey ahead of them.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Why everyone should eat more ugly seafood

June 13, 2022 — Monkfish are low in calories and fat, packed with vitamins and have dense, firm flesh, which makes them relatively easy to cook. They can be cut into chunks, marinated with egg whites, cornflour and seasonings, then briefly blanched in boiling water. Monkfish tail can even be stir-fried without breaking apart, as more delicate fish tend to do. In fact, there is only one problem with monkfish: they are hideous.

With their bulging eyes and wide mouths lined with rows of sharp teeth, they are nightmarish. In Dutch monkfish are called zeeduivel (“sea-devil”); fishermen who caught them used to throw them back. They are still usually sold without their heads, but the days of chucking them overboard are long gone. Japanese diners love the fatty liver; while Italians may still derisively call them “toad tails”, that does not stop them from eating the fish. Fishermen’s associations have been encouraging others to overcome their aversion and eat more monkfish, as well as other unsightly creatures—the better to ensure more diverse, sustainable fisheries.

Read the full story at The Economist