Saving Seafood

News for the New England Region

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island quahog industry reels from ‘gut-wrenching’ sewage spill

May 13, 2026 — Rhode Island quahoggers are facing mounting financial losses following a sewage spill that forced the closure of key shellfishing waters in the Providence River.

“It’s gut-wrenching,” said quahogger Jim Boyd.

“Devastated, to be honest with you,” added full-time commercial shellfisherman Dave Ghigliotty.

The May 4 spill, caused by a broken pipe in East Providence, released 880,000 gallons of sewage into Narragansett Bay, according to Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management (DEM). In response, the DEM closed the 16E shellfishing area, one of the most productive clam beds in the state.

Fishermen say the difference between Area 16E and the rest of the bay is dramatic.

“It’s three to four times better than any of the areas that we can fish,” said Michael McGiveney, President of the Rhode Island Shellfisherman’s Association.

“There’s more quahogs there,” Ghigliotty explained. “There’s more fishing, there’s more ground, there’s more virgin territory.”

Area 16E is located in the waters between Warwick’s Conimicut and Barrington’s Annawomscutt neighborhoods. The territory was closed for decades because of pollution, but after extensive cleanup efforts by the Narragansett Bay Commission, the area was deemed clean enough for shellfishing five years ago, according to the Providence Journal. Since the area had been closed off for so long, the shellfish populations are more robust, explained McGiveney.

Read the full article at NENC

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford exhibit explores fishing’s complex history

May 14, 2026 — A new exhibit exploring the complex history of federal fisheries management is scheduled to open May 14 at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.

Titled “In History’s Wake,” the exhibit examines the legacy of the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, according to a community announcement. The law established the 200-mile limit that pushed out foreign factory ships and laid the groundwork for much of the governance and oversight that manages the commercial fishing industry today.

The exhibit will be on display through spring 2027.

The exhibit goes beyond a look at the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s legislative history, examining the evolution of the industry and the often-challenging relationship between commercial fishermen, the state and federal government, environmentalists, and scientists, according to the announcement.

Read the full article at AOL

Marine life finds new home at base of wind turbines

May 14, 2026 — As lobsters migrate to colder waters due to climate change, Jonah crabs are becoming one of the most important species for fisheries in Southern New England.

“As the biomass of the American lobster declines due to climate-related changes and shifting ocean conditions, many fishermen have adapted by targeting other valuable species, and the Jonah crab has become a major alternative,” said Emmanuel Oyewole, a first-year Ph.D. student in the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. “The Jonah crab used to be considered a bycatch species and thrown back because lobster was so lucrative. As lobsters became less abundant, people started to realize that the Jonah crab is a viable and delicious alternative.”

Oyewole is conducting a study that is partly funded by a grant from The Nature Conservancy into how offshore wind farm structures are impacting the growth and habitats of Jonah crabs.

“Ecologically, Jonah crabs also play an important role in the marine food web,” said Oyewole, who is from Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria, a town in the southwestern part of the country. “They are both predators and prey, helping to maintain balance within benthic ecosystems. Because they are closely connected to seafloor habitats, they can help us understand how offshore wind farm structures may influence local biodiversity, habitat use, and the productivity of fisheries.”

When turbine foundations are installed on the seafloor, their hard surfaces become desirable habitats for marine organisms to attach, grow, and live, just as they do on natural rock or reefs. As algae, barnacles, mussels, and other small marine life, settle on these structures, these smaller organisms attract larger species such as crabs and fish that come to feed, hide, or seek shelter.

Read the full article at the University of Rhode Island

MAINE: Harvesters, scientists and town officials coordinate steps to rebuild clam population

May 12, 2026 — On a cool, overcast Thursday morning, a little before low tide, more than a dozen clam harvesters and Russell Wright, Lubec’s shellfish warden, gathered on the Narrows flats to collect juvenile clams as part of an effort to maintain the local population.

The juvenile clams collected that day were later planted on the Pirates Creek flats, which are expected to remain closed to harvesting until Dec. 1 to protect them as they mature.

The effort was part of the Lubec Shellfish Committee’s two‑pronged approach to clam conservation, which the committee discussed at its May 4 meeting: moving juvenile clams from one flat to another and planting nursery‑grown clam seed.

Read the full article at Maine Monitor

MASSACHUSETTS: Nearly Two Years Later, Broken Blade Investigation Continues

May 7, 2026 — As Vineyard Wind and its turbine manufacturer duke it out in court over hundreds of millions owed to both parties, a federal investigation into what caused the blade failure at the heart of the case remains ongoing nearly two years later.

Last month a Massachusetts superior court judge issued a preliminary injunction that prevented GE Vernova, the company that built and installed several dozen faulty turbine blades at the offshore wind energy project off Martha’s Vineyard, from walking away from its work at the wind farm.

The case hinges on contract language related to who owes who money. GE Vernova said it wanted to exit from its contracts because it was owed more than $300 million. Vineyard Wind said that it didn’t have to pay any money to GE, because the GE owed Vineyard Wind nearly $800 million because of the delays from the shoddy work.

While that continues to play out in court, the long-awaited investigation into the 2024 blade break at Vineyard Wind by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the agency that oversees offshore energy production, continues on with no clear end date.

The bureau itself has been tight-lipped and declined to give a progress report on its work and any of the environmental monitoring that the bureau required of Vineyard Wind.

Read the full article at Vineyard Gazzette

CONNECTICUT: may allow smaller out-of-state lobsters to be sold here – which supporters say could lower prices

May 6, 2026 — Most if not all of the lobsters sold at Captain Scott’s Lobster Dock are from out of state, according to owner Susan Tierney. But when her brother opened the Groton restaurant in 1996, they only sold locally fished lobsters.

“He was a lobsterman and a lobster wholesaler. He used to bring in all of our lobsters,” Tierney said of her now deceased brother, Tom Eshenfelder. “We don’t do that anymore.”

The year that Captain Scott’s opened was a big one for Connecticut’s lobster industry. More than 2.8 million pounds of lobster was landed in Connecticut that year, and by 1998, that number would grow to its peak of more than 3.7 million pounds, according to data maintained by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

But that was before the lobster die-off in Long Island Sound, caused by warming water, a shell rot illness and other factors. By 2000, only 1.3 million pounds of lobster was landed in Connecticut, and it just kept getting worse. In 2022, only 88,000 pounds of lobster was caught by Connecticut lobstermen.

“I don’t see a lot of local lobsters anymore,” Tierney said.

Tierney has to sell out-of-state lobsters, just like other restaurants and fish markets selling lobster in Connecticut, and they all pay a hidden premium on smaller-size lobsters.

State lawmakers will likely change the laws that govern the maximum and minimum size a lobster can be to be legally sold in Connecticut, in the hope that your lobster roll might be somewhat cheaper next year. The language, originally part of a seafood-specific bill, has been added to the state budget bill, which is widely expected to be signed into law by Gov. Ned Lamont.

Endangered whale protections may be delayed to 2035 under Trump-backed plan

May 5, 2026 — For roughly 380 right whales left in the North Atlantic, which can die after getting tangled in fishing ropes or hit by ships, the Trump administration said this month it wants to delay new protections by almost a decade in favor of commercial fishing interests.

The sleek black whales, which weigh as much as a midsized bulldozer, are critically endangered and their numbers have declined sharply in recent decades. Environmental groups say reducing deaths and injuries caused by people is essential to the species’ recovery.

The whales give birth off Florida and Georgia before making a long migration north to feed off New England and Canada. Protected areas of ocean aid them on their journey, but scientists have said they have strayed from those zones in recent years in search of food as the oceans have warmed.

A proposal by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from Maine, would push back new federal protections for right whales to 2035, and allow time to craft regulations that are less burdensome to the fishing industry. The White House released a memo Friday saying it “strongly supports” the plan and that President Donald Trump’s senior advisors would recommend he sign it into law if it passes Congress.

Read the full article at the Associates Press

Enviros sue Trump admin to stop fishing in Atlantic monument

May 5, 2026 — Green groups and an ocean conservationist have sued the Trump administration over its attempt to open a 3.1-million-acre national monument off the coast of Cape Cod to commercial fishing.

President Donald Trump’s proclamation would jeopardize endangered whales, vulnerable corals and other delicate species and ecosystems protected by the Atlantic Ocean’s first and only marine national monument, the groups said in a statement announcing their lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Washington.

“Northeast Canyons and Seamounts is a living scientific laboratory and a refuge for species as varied as cold-water corals and sperm whales. Only the Trump administration would think it makes sense to open it up to damage and harm from commercial fishing,” said Devon Flanagan, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That decision is clearly unlawful, and we will be fighting it in court until we win.”

Read the full article at E&E News

The New England Fishing Industry Is Helping Scientists To Understand Ocean Changes

May 4, 2026 — For decades, fishing studies typically employed one-on-one mapping exercises, guided by a facilitator who helped fishing industry participants to draw polygons or mark points on a digital or a paper map of an area of interest. Such ocean mapping has a strong temporal component, as it is intended to gather data for multiple seasons or even multi-decade fishing patterns. However, a new intersection of the fishing industry and research scientists is providing much more robust information about the seas below.

A whole slew of fishers have willingly added another task to their long days at sea: collecting essential data information about the changing ocean environment with the helping hand of technology.

Other fishers want in — there’s a waiting list.

Nearly 150 fishermen along the eastern seaboard have given permission to have temperature sensors installed on their traps or trawl nets. As chronicled by the New York Times, it’s one element of a larger non-profit program — one that kicked off in 2001, expanded in 2024 with a $2 million grant from the state of Massachusetts, increased with $200,000 from the Nature Conservancy, and was boosted by $120,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A $5,000 package of sensors, software, and tablets that the fishers deploy is paid for by the program.

Read the full article at Clean Technica

MAINE: Downeast fleet mourns loss of Steuben lobsterman found

April 29, 2026 — The Downeast Maine fleet is mourning the loss of one of its own after a longtime Steuben lobsterman was found dead in the water.

63-year-old Thomas West was discovered in Dyer Bay early Wednesday morning near his 35-foot lobster boat Aces and Eights. The Maine Department of Marine Resources said West was found around 6 am after a search effort that began the night before, when local fishermen reported his vessel running with no one aboard.

Maine Marine Patrol launched a search on Tuesday night, deploying a remotely operated vehicle to scan the area near the moored boat. The effort was suspended in the early morning hours due to low visibility but was set to resume before West’s body was ultimately located by family members and brought aboard a relative’s vessel, according to News Center Maine.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman