Saving Seafood

Report: Trump backs off ending ocean monitoring after Murkowski co-leads block of plan in Senate

June 19, 2026 — The Trump administration’s dismantling of an ocean monitoring system used for purposes such as ecosystem and climate monitoring has been put on hold after the U.S. Senate in a bipartisan vote Wednesday passed a measure blocking the plan, according to published reports.

The National Science Foundation is expected to announce Thursday it will pause efforts to take apart the $368 million Ocean Observatories Initiative while convening an expert panel to determine its future, according to The New York Times, citing a review of documents obtained by the newspaper.
The NSA stated in May it planned to remove instruments from waters off Alaska, Washington state, Oregon, North Carolina and Greenland during the coming year, with the first occurring this week in Oregon.

Deep sea observation system that tracks climate change saved from disassembly

June 19, 2026 — A critical deep ocean observation network that includes a long-standing station off the coast of Alaska has been saved from getting dismantled. As first reported by the New York Times, the Trump administration dropped its plan to get rid of the ocean and climate tracking system after the U.S. Senate unanimously blocked the move this week.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley sponsored the measure, which prohibits the National Science Foundation from spending federal money to remove the equipment anchored off the coast of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, North Carolina and in an area called the Irminger Sea between Iceland and Greenland.

On the Senate floor Wednesday, Murkowski said the Ocean Observatories Initiative collects hard-to-access information that’s critical for understanding warming seas.

“This is all happening at a time when everybody’s talking about El Niño, and what that is going to bring in terms of the potential for extreme weather events,” Murkowski said. “This is not the time to be turning off one of our most valuable scientific assets.”

Read the full article at KTOO

U.S. scientific instruments in oceans off Alaska and elsewhere to remain in place

June 19, 2026 — Hundreds of sophisticated monitoring instruments will remain in place in the nation’s oceans, thanks to a National Science Foundation reversal of its plan to partially dismantle the system.

The federal agency announced on Thursday that it is dropping its plan to remove hundreds of instruments from the Ocean Observatories Initiative program.

The program encompasses more than 900 instruments monitoring ocean currents, temperatures, sea life and other conditions. Information gathered is used to analyze weather and prepare for extreme weather events, manage fisheries, record climate change and other functions. The $386 million system was installed a decade ago and was intended to last for three decades.

News that the Trump administration planned to pull out hundreds of the instruments – including those positioned in Alaska’s ocean waters – triggered outrage from scientists, the fishing industry, members of Congress from coastal states and others.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

ALASKA: Alaska’s Murkowski among Congress members seeking to save ocean science network

June 16, 2026 — Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is among several members of Congress trying to prevent the National Science Foundation from dismantling portions of an instrument system that monitors the nation’s oceans.

The National Science Foundation plans to pull out much of the instrumentation in the Ocean Observatories Initiative system, which began operating in 2016 and was intended to last for three decades.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

Feds will abruptly dismantle system monitoring climate change, oceans

June 11, 2026 –The National Science Foundation has begun dismantling a major ocean monitoring network more than a decade earlier than planned.

Some scientists say it will be a “tragic” loss of crucial information about the world’s warming oceans.

The dismantling will end most of the monitoring in one of the nation’s most advanced, continuous observing systems less than halfway through its intended 25-year lifespan. Researchers warn that the loss of measurements will limit efforts to better understand ocean phenomena, including marine heat waves, hurricanes, fisheries and long-term shifts in climate, even as the oceans reach record-warm temperatures.

The Science Foundation-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative oversees web-like arrays of instruments and sensors from the surface to the sea floor in remote ocean regions. The foundation will remove four of its last five arrays by the end of summer 2027, according to a statement by Jim Edson, a principal investigator for the initiative and senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Read the full article at USA TODAY

Loss of ocean monitoring could create fisheries blind spot

June 8, 2026 — The Alaska Marine Community Coalition is raising concerns over plans to dismantle much of the federal Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), arguing that the loss of long-term ocean monitoring could reduce critical information used to understand changing conditions in Alaska’s fisheries.

In a recent statement, the coalition said the National Science Foundation plans to remove in-water equipment from four of the five OOI sites over the next 15 months, including Ocean Station Papa in the Gulf of Alaska, located roughly 620 miles offshore. The network has collected continuous oceanographic data since 2016, while Station Papa itself has served as one of the North Pacific’s longest-running ocean monitoring locations.

The coalition said the station provides information on deep-water temperatures, ocean chemistry, currents and biological conditions that help scientists track changes affecting species including salmon, halibut, crab and pollock.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Trump administration planning to dismantle Ocean Observatories Initiative

June 3, 2026 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is dismantling a deep-ocean observation system put in place over a decade ago, leaving gaps in scientific data that assists in everything from storm forecasting to fishery health.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) consists of six different underwater monitoring arrays that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) said is the most advanced continuously-operated observing systems in the world. Using hundreds of different instruments, the arrays provide openly-accessible data to oceanographers, researchers, educators, and the public.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Marine Stewardship Council Reports That 90 Percent of US Fisheries Meet Sustainable Standards; Highlights MSC-Certified SCEMFIS Members

February 6, 2026 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

Last week, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) highlighted the sustainability of U.S. fisheries with new data from 2025 showing that, by volume, 90 percent of the U.S. catch is MSC-certified and meets the organization’s sustainability guidelines. Among the organizations highlighted are industry members of the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS).

SCEMFIS, a member of the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program, brings together marine scientists and members of the commercial fishing and wind energy industries to collaborate on fisheries research focusing on sustainable fisheries. Several SCEMFIS member organizations participate in fisheries that have been certified against the MSC Sustainable Fisheries standard, including Atlantic and Gulf menhaden, Atlantic surfclam and ocean quahog, longfin and shortfin squid, black sea bass, summer flounder, Atlantic and Pacific tuna, and scup.

Wayne Reichle, the Owner and President of Lund’s Fisheries, a member of SCEMFIS’s Industry Advisory Board (IAB), is quoted by the MSC in their announcement:

“For nearly ten years, Lund’s Fisheries, Inc. has collaborated with the MSC, and our partner conformity assessment bodies (CABs), to assure domestic and international markets vitally important to our long-term success that the seafood we produce is managed sustainably based on rigorous, annual, scientific and monitoring reviews. Our MSC-certified Atlantic sea scallop, Atlantic and Pacific squid, and Atlantic menhaden purse seine, scup, fluke and black sea bass trawl fisheries have provided us with access to markets that would not otherwise be available to our third-generation fishing company, to the benefit of our community, our employees and our company and independent fishermen whose cooperation we depend upon each day as we plan for the future.”

The MSC “sets criteria to ensure healthy fish stocks, minimal harmful impacts on marine ecosystems, and to promote effective and responsive management.” 62 species in the U.S. are MSC certified, with more than 1,300 certified products available in the U.S. market.

In 2025, MSC became the newest member of the SCEMFIS IAB. In joining, MSC praised the work the Center has done for seafood sustainability, with MSC’s Anthony Mastitski, Fisheries Outreach Manager, saying, “SCEMFIS plays a pivotal role in advancing scientific research across U.S. fisheries, including many that are MSC-certified. Thanks in part to SCEMFIS, these fisheries have maintained their certifications and continue to offer sustainable seafood options to consumers at home and abroad.”

In addition to having the MSC and several MSC-certified fisheries represented on the Center’s Board, SCEMFIS research has directly improved the sustainability of many of these fisheries. Among other issues, SCEMFIS-supported science has provided new insights into how climate change has impacted Atlantic surfclam and ocean quahog, and how to best estimate their ages and populations; an analysis of Gulf predators’ diets that better defines the role of Gulf menhaden as a forage species in the food web; updating the maturity and fecundity schedules for Atlantic menhaden and addressed improvements in the Atlantic menhaden stock assessment; and the economic impact of the Atlantic surfclam, scup, Gulf menhaden, longfin squid, and summer flounder fisheries.

RHODE ISLAND: URI part of finalist team selected by National Science Foundation in Regional Innovation Engines competition

October 17, 2025 — Aquaculture/Fisheries Professor Marta Gomez-Chiarri is leading efforts at the University of Rhode Island to help position New England as a national leader in the seafood industry, hoping to secure final funding through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines program. URI joins a consortium of regional partners, collectively known as NSPIRE, selected as finalists in the national competition.

Gomez-Chiarri, in URI’s Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences Department, is the lead faculty member on the finalist team in a competitive process which began with almost 300 letters of intent and is now down to just 15 finalists. She’ll work closely with principal investigator Jake Kritzer at Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS) and a large team of senior investigators from several partner institutions.

“Hearing we were picked as finalists was extremely rewarding,” she says. “It validated all the hard work that our team put into this proposal.”

“I commend URI for being selected to move forward in NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines program. Rhode Island is a leader when it comes to our sustainable aquaculture and seafood harvesters, and this funding will help Ocean State researchers better support our local fishermen and shellfishermen and support resilient growth of this industry across our region,” says U.S. Senator Jack Reed, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee who has delivered millions of dollars in federal investments for Rhode Island’s aquaculture and seafood industries and research.

Read the full article at The University of Rhode Island

Regional collaborative NSPIRE aims to ‘revolutionize’ New England seafood industry

October 10, 2025 — A collaboration between New England fisheries groups, universities, research institutions, government agencies, blue tech businesses, and others is working to level-up the region’s seafood industry. The New England Seafood Partnership for Innovations, Research and Engagement (NSPIRE) is in the running for a big boost from the National Science Foundation.

NSPIRE is working on several fronts to make the local seafood industry more competitive and sustainable. It’s one of 15 finalists in the running for the NSF Engines program, which comes with $15 million in funding over two years.

Read the full article at CAI