Saving Seafood

News for the New England Region

Data now coming straight from the deck

May 14, 2025 — A new kind of data collection is taking root in New England’s groundfish world, and it’s coming from a place that’s been underrepresented for a long time- the recreational for-hire fleet.

Over the past year and a half, a collaborative project called RecBio, short for the Recreational Biological Sampling Program, has been quietly revolutionizing how scientists and fishermen work together to gather vital biological data on Atlantic cod, and more recently, winter flounder. The program is led by Willy Goldsmith of Pelagic Strategies, Anna Mercer of NOAA’s Cooperative Research Branch, and Jeff Kneebone from the New England Aquarium. But the real force behind it? The captains themselves—charter operators who’ve stepped up to fill a critical data gap.

The goal is simple, but the impact is far-reaching: generate time- and location- specific age and length data from the for-hire fleet to help inform federal stock assessments—particularly for species like cod, for which the composition of recreational catch has historically been hard to quantify beyond just weight or poundage.

The catalyst for the project came from inside the Council process. “This project was actually first conceived by a couple of New England Council members representing the for-hire fleet,” shared Goldsmith. “Council member Capt. Mike Pierdinock, president of the Stellwagen Bank Charter Boat Association, came to us and said, ‘We really don’t have a lot of information on what the recreational sector is catching—especially with this new stock structure for cod.’” Current Council Chair Capt. Rick Bellavance, who serves as President of the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association, agreed.

Until recently, Atlantic cod was assessed and managed under just two stock units: the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank. In 2023, the structure expanded to four, including the Western Gulf of Maine (WGOM) and Southern New England (SNE), two areas where for-hire charter captains operate heavily. But under the previous system, biological data like age and length from recreationally caught fish was almost nonexistent. In some cases, there were zero recorded lengths from specific stock areas for entire years. And when it came to the age data? Nothing.

“There’s just not the same reporting and accountability requirements on the recreational side as there are on the commercial,” said Goldsmith. “It’s a different world, which makes it difficult to understand what’s really happening on the water.” This is particularly important given that the recreational fleet often targets cod (and other species) in different areas and using different gears than in commercial fisheries, meaning that scientists and managers may have an incomplete picture of stock status and trends.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: How climate change impacts alewives and other migrating fish in Maine

May 14, 2025 — If you have ever experienced an alewife migration, you know it is a true Maine experience that you must see to believe. As temperatures warm in Maine, alewives are beginning their remarkable migration into the Gulf of Maine. These small but mighty fish face new challenges as climate patterns shift.

“I love alewives, I think they are the most important fish in the sea and the river and the lake,” says Zach Whitener, Research Associate at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. “When you see them scurrying up their brooks, they’ll swim on their side through half an inch of water. They are such determined to get where they want to go.”

Alewives join several species including blueback herring, American shad, and Atlantic salmon that migrate from ocean to freshwater. “These are anadromous fish, which means they live in the ocean as adults, but they spawn in freshwater,” Whitener explains. “In freshwater, the fish don’t have much competition as juveniles.”

After feeding in the ocean for three to four years, these fish return to their birthplace to spawn in the same lakes where they were hatched.

The Gulf of Maine serves as a “grocery store for most of the North Atlantic,” but climate change is creating complex challenges for migrating fish.

Read the full article at WMTW

Trump reinstating commercial fishing in northeast marine monument

May 12, 2025 — President Trump is reinstating commercial fishing in a national marine monument after the practice was blocked by his Democratic predecessors.

Trump is expected to issue a proclamation Friday reinstating commercial fishing access in all 4,913 square miles of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which is located off the coast of Massachusetts.

The proclamation was first reported by the NH Journal.

The national monument was established by former President Obama to protect deep-sea canyons with unique ecosystems. The administration said at the time that these ecosystems are significantly impacted by climate change.

Read the full article at The Hill

MAINE: Maine lobstermen remain mighty political force despite shrinking numbers

May 12, 2025 — Maine lobstermen once held more than 7,000 commercial licenses, but now about half many actively fish for Maine’s most valuable catch.

The decline has occurred since the late 1990s as Maine’s commercial fishing industry, which is dominated by lobstermen, faces increasing challenges in the form of climate change, increased regulation and competition for space in the Gulf of Maine.

While the drop has been gradual, its effects could be far-reaching, given lobstermen’s central role in Maine’s coastal economy and their political might in both Augusta and Washington D.C.

On the local level, declining numbers of lobstermen could take away a key economic support for Maine towns and businesses that rely on the fishery.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

Fishermen battling with changing oceans chart new course after Trump’s push to deregulate

May 11, 2025 — Virginia Olsen has pulled lobsters from Maine’s chilly Atlantic waters for decades while watching threats to the state’s lifeblood industry mount.

Trade imbalances with Canada, tight regulations on fisheries and offshore wind farms towering like skyscrapers on open water pose three of those threats, said Olsen, part of the fifth generation in her family to make a living in the lobster trade.

That’s why she was encouraged last month when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that promises to restore American fisheries to their former glory. The order promises to shred fishing regulations, and Olsen said that will allow fishermen to do what they do best — fish.

That will make a huge difference in communities like her home of Stonington, the busiest lobster fishing port in the country, Olsen said. It’s a tiny island town of winding streets, swooping gulls and mansard roof houses with an economy almost entirely dependent on commercial fishing, some three hours up the coast from Portland, Maine’s biggest city.

Olsen knows firsthand how much has changed over the years. Hundreds of fish and shellfish populations globally have dwindled to dangerously low levels, alarming scientists and prompting the restrictions and catch limits that Trump’s order could wash away with the stroke of a pen. But she’s heartened that the livelihoods of people who work the traps and cast the nets have become a priority in faraway places where they often felt their voices weren’t heard.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

 

Trump to allow commercial fishing in New England marine monument

May 9, 2025 — President Donald Trump on Friday will sign a proclamation restoring commercial fishing access to a marine national monument off New England, according to a White House official.

The move is aligned with the Trump administration’s efforts to cut regulations it believes are burdensome to businesses and economic activity.

The proclamation will reopen the nearly 5,000-square-mile (13,000-square-kilometer) Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which was designated by former President Barack Obama in 2016 to protect species including deep-sea corals, sea turtles and whales.

Trump opened the monument to fishing during his first term in 2020, but that was reversed by former President Joe Biden in 2021.

The decision supports fishing communities, economic activity and jobs, the White House official said.

Read the full story from Reuters

US senator warns of warming, plastic threats to world’s oceans and fisheries

May 9, 2025 — U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) took to the Senate floor 7 May to warn his colleagues of the threat the warming climate and plastic pollution poses to the world’s oceans and fisheries.

“In the 10 minutes that it takes me to give this speech, the oceans will absorb 4,000 Hiroshima detonations’ worth of heat,” Whitehouse said. “That is why seawater off the Florida Keys hit jacuzzi temperatures. That is why measuring devices along our coasts show a foot of sea level rise already. That is why fish species are moving about and fisheries are collapsing. That is why the world’s coral reefs are bleaching out – over 80 percent of the world’s reefs hit in the last ocean heating surge caused by fossil fuel.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Gulf of Maine may be impacted by Trump’s offshore oil and gas drilling expansion

May 8, 2025 — As part of the Trump’s administration’s effort to expand fossil fuel production in the United States, the Department of the Interior announced recently that it would accelerate the permitting process for a range of energy sources and seek new oil and gas lease sales in offshore waters, including in the Gulf of Maine.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said the permitting changes — which speed up review under the National Environmental Policy and Endangered Species Acts, among others — would cut what is often a multi-year review process down to several weeks.

Environmental groups and Maine lawmakers decried the moves while oil and gas industry representatives celebrated them. Days later, a group of New England Senators, including Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, introduced legislation to ban offshore drilling in waters throughout New England.

“The waters off Maine’s coast provide a healthy ecosystem for our fisheries and are an integral part of our tourism industry, supporting thousands of jobs and generating billions of dollars in revenue each year,” said Collins in a statement. “Offshore drilling along the coast could impact Mainers of all walks of life for generations.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Supreme Court declines to hear challenges to Vineyard Wind

May 7, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear two cases challenging the federal approval of Vineyard Wind. The court denied the petitions Monday.

Commercial fishing interests sued the federal agencies involved in approving the wind farm, which is under construction 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

The lawsuits were originally filed in 2021 and 2022.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Supreme Court rejects 2 challenges to Vineyard Wind

May 6, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied petitions from the fishing industry and a conservative think tank challenging the Vineyard Wind project, rejecting their March requests that the country’s highest court hear their cases.

A fishing industry lobbying group, Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), sued the lead government regulator of offshore wind in early 2022, alleging that by approving Vineyard Wind, the agency had violated several acts, including those protecting existing ocean users and endangered species. The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), which represents fishermen and a fishing company in Rhode Island in another lawsuit, had also petitioned the Supreme Court.

RODA had already lost its case in two other courts: first, in 2023 in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, where a judge sided with the project and regulators; and second, in 2024 in the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where the judge upheld the lower court’s decision. TPPF also had its case dismissed by the lower courts.

“We are disappointed that the Supreme Court denied our petition,” said Lane Johnston, executive director of RODA, in an email Monday. “This issue is of such importance to members of the commercial fishing industry. RODA will continue our efforts to combat the destructive industrialization of the nation’s marine resources.”

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light