Saving Seafood

Major menhaden fishing company says quota cuts will likely lead to “operational adjustments”

October 30, 2025 — The largest menhaden fishing company in the U.S. announced it will likely need to reexamine its operations in 2026 due to proposed cuts to the total allowable catch (TAC) for Atlantic menhaden.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) voted on 28 October to cut the 2026 Atlantic menhaden TAC by 20 percent, reducing it from 233,550 metric tons (MT) to 186,840 MT. The vote drew criticism from both the fishing industry and environmental groups, with the industry calling it unnecessary and environmental groups claiming it ignores problems with the stock.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ASMFC approves 20 percent cuts to Atlantic menhaden quota for 2026

October 29, 2025 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has chosen to cut the 2026 Atlantic menhaden quota by 20 percent for 2026, drawing criticism from the fishing industry and environmental groups alike.

The ASMFC menhaden management board met on 28 October and decided to reduce the total allowable catch (TAC) for menhaden to 186,840 metric tons (MT), down 20 percent from the 233,550-MT quota the commission set for 2025. The reduction was based on a number of different factors, including ecological reference points (ERPs) that include interactions between fishing mortality rates and striped bass, as well as other predator biomass targets, and a lower estimated fecundity of menhaden.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Groups push back after ASMFC approves 20 percent menhaden quota cut

October 29, 2025 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) voted this week to approve a 20 percent cut to the 2026 Atlantic menhaden quota, a decision that New England Fishermen say will have far-reaching effects on bait supply and working waterfronts across the East Coast.

At its 83rd Annual Meeting in Dewey Beach, Delaware, the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board chose to approve quota specifications for only the 2026 season rather than a full three-year package through 2028, opting to revisit the issue next year amid continued uncertainty in the commission’s new ecosystem model.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Commerce rejects New England council’s cod amendment

May 29, 2025 — U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik disapproved the New England Fishery Management Council’s proposed Amendment 25 to the Northeast groundfish plan, sending it back to the council for revisions – or developing a new amendment.

The council proposed dividing the present two cod stocks into four geographic units, with new, separate annual catch limits (ACLs) for each units. The plan was protested by New England fishermen after the council’s approval in December 2024.

“These restrictions are going to be the end of the trawlers and anyone else buying fish,” New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) CEO Jerry Leeman said then. “Everyone in the fisheries expects Addendum 25 to torpedo their businesses.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced Lutnik’s decision in a May 28 statement. The amendment is disapproved “on the basis that Amendment 25 and its supporting analyses do not adequately demonstrate how the proposed action is consistent with National Standard 1 or other required provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act,” according to the agency.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Many Maine fishermen applaud Trump order calling for deregulation

April 21, 2025 — Many Maine fishermen are applauding a new executive order from President Trump, which calls on the federal government to identify and roll back regulations that are overly burdensome to the commercial fishing industry.

The order signals that the Trump administration wants to listen to commercial harvesters and involve them in decision-making and research, said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

“There are a lot of regulations that you could take a scalpel to, right? We can clean things up,” he said. “There’s a piling up regulations that takes place over time, and so I think it needs to be done carefully.”

Jerry Leeman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, described the order as a “long time coming.” Many of his members have long questioned the data that federal fisheries regulators use to conduct stock assessments and set stock limits.

Read the full story at Maine Public

MAINE: Anti-offshore wind fishing group backed by right-wing money eyes support from Maine towns

April 3, 2025 — Since its founding three years ago, the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association has been a vocal opponent of offshore wind and relied on funding from a right-wing advocacy group connected to one of the most influential conservative activists in the U.S.

Now, the fishermen’s organization known as NEFSA is looking to diversify its revenue sources by asking coastal communities in Maine for financial support.

Jerry Leeman is the founder and CEO of NEFSA. And for the past three years he’s been the star of an advocacy campaign that’s led him up and down the northeast coast to preach against offshore wind.

Sometimes it’s in a banquet room in Rye, N.H., or in one of NEFSA’s slickly produced videos.

“These ridiculous data assessments that are based on little to nothing, we’re doing falsified research. It’s political science. This isn’t real science. Real science is the real observation of what things are,” Leeman said in one of NEFSA’s videos.

That message — and his sharp critiques of offshore wind — have also landed Leeman interviews on FOX News. When a blade from the Vineyard Wind project near Nantucket broke and sent debris onto nearby beaches last summer, Leeman joined a protest flotilla that drew interest from the network’s business channel.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Maine and NH lobstermen celebrate reversal of lobster catch size limits

February 4, 2025 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission have walked back new regulations that New Hampshire and Maine lobstermen said would have dire economic consequences to their industry.

The commission voted Tuesday to repeal key elements of a proposed increase to minimum allowable catch sizes for Gulf of Maine lobster. The announcement comes after officials in Maine and New Hampshire, which together account for most of U.S. lobster landings, announced they would not cooperate with the proposal.

“New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) thanks the commission for heeding the voice of lobstermen,” said NEFSA COO and fourth-generation lobsterman Dustin Delano. “Raising catch sizes at this time would bankrupt many lobstermen and surrender the U.S. market to foreign competitors. NEFSA is grateful that the commission has chosen to support our historic trade, which contributes billions to New England’s economy and shapes the character of the region.”

Read the full article at Fosters Daily Democrat

Plankton decline poses threat to marine ecosystems

January 30, 2025 — For decades, researchers around the world have been observing negative trends in plankton population dynamics.

Jerry Leeman, executive director of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), has become a prominent voice for New England fishermen. His passion for defending a way of life comes from having lived it. He knows his fish, but lately, he has focused on an invisible but essential component of the commercial fishing industry: plankton. Like many fishermen, Leeman opposes offshore wind farms, not only because of the space they take up and the dangers they create but because they kill plankton, the foundation of the marine food chain.

“The cooling systems for these windmills pump 8.1 million gallons of seawater through every day, heating it to 86 to 90 degrees and killing 100 percent of the plankton,” says Leeman, citing projections for Ørsted’s 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind project off New York. “We’re seeing a 65 percent decline in the phytoplankton population in the Gulf of Maine over the last two decades, and we’re talking about putting wind farms that kill plankton in areas where we have no baseline for primary production.”

As Leeman notes, phytoplankton is the foundation of the marine food chain. It also provides upwards of 50 percent of the earth’s oxygen. Climate change, wind farms, agricultural run-off, microplastic, and a host of other threats are affecting plankton and it’s surprising that the decline of this vital component of the earth’s ecosystems is not front-page news.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

New England fishers protest proposed changes to region’s cod management plan

December 4, 2024 — Commercial fishers in the U.S. region of New England are protesting a new cod management plan under consideration by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC), claiming the changes will destroy the region’s historic cod fishery.

“These restrictions are going to be the end of the trawlers and anyone else buying fish,” New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) CEO Jerry Leeman said in a statement. “Everyone in the fisheries expects Addendum 25 to torpedo their businesses.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Trump reversal looms for offshore wind

November 6, 2024 — Former President Donald Trump’s impending 2025 return to the White House sent shock waves through the U.S. offshore wind industry and was hailed by its foes, who look forward to Trump’s campaign promise to shut down projects “on day one.”

“The incoming administration has a historic opportunity to save American workers from foreign developers, reinvigorate iconic coastal towns, and improve America’s food security,” said Jerry Leeman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, on Wednesday morning.

 Trump’s victory could bring a sharp reversal of the wind industry’s fortunes, as happened immediately after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

“They destroy everything, they’re horrible, the most expensive energy there is,” Trump said at a May 11 rally in Wildwood, N.J., where he pledged to halt turbine projects. “They ruin the environment, they kill the birds, they kill the whales.”

Despite Trump’s campaign rhetoric against them, wind power advocates tried to make a case for continuation.

Read the full article at WorkBoat