Saving Seafood

News for the New England Region

NOAA closes Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop Management Area midseason

April 11, 2025 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shut down the Gulf of Maine’s scallop fishery Friday.

“As of April 11, 2025, no scallop vessel fishing under federal scallop regulations may fish for, possess, or land scallops in or from the Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop Management Area,” NOAA’s announcement reads. “The scallop regulations require that we close this area once we project that 100% of the 2025 Northern Gulf of Maine Set-Aside will be taken.”

Members of Maine’s fishing industry have been anticipating the closure, saying regulators delayed finalizing this year’s catch limits amid their transition to the Trump Administration.

“It hasn’t been as easy to get information this year from NOAA fisheries,” said Togue Brawn, a Member of the New England Fishery Management Council and the founder of Downeast Dayboat and Dayboat Blue. “As we know, things are changing with the government, people are getting fired, people are afraid to talk. It’s a little dystopian, and frankly unsettling, and it does a disservice to the fishermen and the employees that are there trying to manage the fishery.”

The fishery shuts down every year once projections show the allowed set-aside for the year will be met, but this closure marks the first time NOAA has closed the fishery in the middle of the season — which some believe poses uncertainty for fishermen who traveled to the southern reaches of the Gulf of Maine fishing area off of Massachusetts.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

MAINE: Students help scientists count baby scallops

April 10, 2025 — Students from Deer Isle-Stonington High School, all members of the Eastern Maine Skippers Program, gathered on April 4 at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington to count scallop spat in an effort to predict where beds of the bivalve mollusk might appear.

Spat is the term researchers use to describe post-larval, or juvenile, scallops. These tiny creatures, measuring roughly 1/8 inch, will mature over time into the delicious scallops treasured by diners.

The spat, members of the species Plactopecten magellanicus, or Atlantic deep-sea scallop, are found from North Carolina to the Gulf of St Lawrence. Local scallops are either harvested in the wild near shore or raised in one of several local aqua farms in and around Penobscot Bay.

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

MASSACHUSETTS: What’s new with wind projects off Massachusetts and beyond?

April 9, 2025 — By sight, the offshore wind industry seems to be moving forward on the East Coast. Gargantuan, bright white turbine towers stand tall against New Bedford’s busy waterfront, and poke above I-95 as cars whiz by over the Thames River in New London. But the future of the industry beyond these active projects is uncertain at best under a hostile Trump administration.

In late March, Massachusetts announced another delay of contracts between state utilities and two projects that together promise to power more than 1.5 million homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The state said uncertainty about federal policy was a factor.

The Trump administration, through executive order, effectively froze new permits for offshore wind in January. That has empowered opponents to mount even more legal challenges to projects — including some in March from Nantucket town officials and activists.

The federal government could pause still-pending projects for at least the next four years, eventually leaving New Bedford and New London’s purpose-built marine terminals empty once again. And in an extreme scenario, the administration could even try to stop the projects that are already under construction.

Yet Massachusetts is counting on offshore wind to meet its climate goals of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and achieving net-zero emissions (meaning the state offsets or removes as much carbon as it emits) by 2050.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

MAINE: Maine Senate unanimously approves new Department of Marine Resources commissioner

April 9, 2025 — The Maine Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to confirm Carl Wilson as commissioner of Department of Marine Resources.

Wilson headed DMR’s Bureau of Marine Science for roughly a decade and formerly served as the lead lobster biologist in the department. Wilson replaces Patrick Keliher, who retired last month after more than a dozen years leading the regulatory agency.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MASSACHUSETTS: In MA, first-ever fishing limits for false albacore and bonito likely coming

April 8, 2025 — Massachusetts is poised to become the first East Coast state to set regular fishing limits on false albacore and Atlantic bonito.

Though there aren’t clear numbers about the abundance of either fish, fishermen have urged the state regulators to set precautionary limits to prevent the stocks from getting depleted. It’s somewhat unusual; often, the fishing community pushes back against new regulations.

“I think a lot of the guides and charter boat captains are really trying to protect the golden egg here,” said Chris McGuire, director of the Massachusetts Ocean Program at the Nature Conservancy. “Things are seemingly good right now. And if there’s a way of putting precautionary management in place to maintain the status quo, that would be amazing.”

The regulations establish a minimum size limit for both species at 16” and a combined bag limit of 5 fish per angler. There are some exemptions for the mackerel fishery and the weir fishery.

In letters to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), many fishermen voiced their support.

Read the full article at New England Public Media

Court case against New England offshore wind approvals can proceed

April 4, 2025 — A sweeping legal challenge to federal agency approvals for an offshore wind project under construction in New England has cleared an initial legal hurdle.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled this week that a number of legal claims could move forward against the Interior Department, NOAA Fisheries and the Army Corps of Engineers for approving the Revolution Wind Farm and the Revolution Wind export cable project in Rhode Island.

The case led by the Green Oceans nonprofit group alleges that the agencies violated a slew of environmental laws — from the Endangered Species Act to the National Historic Preservation Act — when they approved the 65-turbine Revolution Wind project 15 miles off the coast of Block Island. Construction began on the wind farm in 2023 and is projected to be completed next year, when it would provide 304 megawatts to Connecticut and 400 MW to Rhode Island.

Read the full article at E&E News

SouthCoast Wind responds to Nantucket litigation against wind farm’s federal approval

April 3, 2025 — SouthCoast Wind is responding to litigation by the Town of Nantucket appealing federal approval of the offshore wind farm planned for waters 20 miles south of the island.

The CEO of SouthCoast Wind, Michael Brown, told CAI the federal review was rigorous with regard to Nantucket’s concerns for environmental and historic preservation.

The wind farm’s parent company, Ocean Winds, remains confident in the thoroughness of the process, he said.

SouthCoast Wind is still awaiting some permits but received its main federal approval in December.

Read the full article at CAI

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: Health program for fishermen launched

April 3, 2025 — Healthy Harvesters, a wellness program designed for fishermen, has been launched by the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety, Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries and the town of Stonington.

“This is an essential program for providing fishermen with much needed support in improving their health and increasing their access to health care,” said NCOHS Director Julie Sorensen in a press release.

Read the full article at Mount Desert Islander

Awash in uncertainty, SouthCoast Wind contract delayed for a third time

April 2, 2025 — No one knew exactly how President Donald Trump’s first-day order halting new offshore wind leases would affect the federal approvals already granted for the SouthCoast Wind project planned south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

More than two months later, uncertainty still hangs over the 147-turbine wind farm. Which is why SouthCoast Wind and utility companies in Rhode Island and Massachusetts announced Monday a three-month extension to finish contract negotiations — the same day final contracts were set to be executed.

“The multi-state negotiations have been complex and ambitious; now they must also tackle uncertainty presented by federal policy,” Rebecca Ullman, a SouthCoast Wind spokesperson, said in an emailed statement on Monday. SouthCoast Wind is grateful for the continued collaboration with our Massachusetts and Rhode Island partners.”

The new June 30 deadline marks the third delay since Rhode Island and Massachusetts jointly unveiled plans in September to buy power from SouthCoast Wind following a competitive, tri-state solicitation that included Connecticut. The bulk of the power from SouthCoast’s 1,287 megawatts of “nameplate capacity” — 1,087 megawatts — would go to Massachusetts under tentative contracts with its utility companies. Rhode Island Energy was set to buy the remaining 200 megawatts of wind-powered electricity to deliver to the Ocean State’s electric grid.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current