November 24, 2025 — Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have raided a New Jersey seafood market for a second time this year, but it’s not clear if anyone was taken into custody.
According to NJ.com, more than two dozen ICE agents entered Newark, New Jersey-based Ocean Seafood Depot on 19 November to execute a search warrant.
November 21, 2025 — Across the country, fishermen, farmers, chefs, and educators are working to keep fishing heritage alive while inspiring new generations to value the bounties of our coastal waters. Here, experts from the Atlantic coast share their stories and tips for making seafood a bigger part of your life—no matter where you live. And stay tuned: we’ll be sharing Part Two featuring insights from Pacific coast experts.
Scallop Shack Farms began as South Jersey’s original seafood pop-up. Captain Brady Lybarger, an experienced second-generation commercial fisherman, and his wife Amanda started selling scallops from the back of their truck during the pandemic.
Today, the thriving family-run market in Cape May, New Jersey offers scallops, seasonal catches, and gourmet goods, all sourced directly from American fishermen. Brady runs the shop with his wife, her father and sister-in-law, and even nieces, welcoming seafood lovers in to buy and connect. At Scallop Shack Farms, seafood goes from boat—often Brady’s own F/V Salted—to home chefs within hours of landing. Customers don’t just buy seafood there—they learn the story behind it, meet the people who caught it, and become part of a growing family of supporters.
Brady knows firsthand the challenges facing the fishing industry, with declining fisheries, rising costs, and fewer young workers entering the trade. That’s why he carves out time to serve on New England Fishery Management Council advisory panels on tilefish and scallops, ensuring fishermen’s knowledge informs management decisions.
November 17, 2025 — Yet another offshore wind farm in New Jersey is being canceled by its developers.
Leading Light Wind, which already has been delayed twice and was pending a third delay request, will not be moving forward, an attorney for the project said in a letter to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU).
Colleen A. Foley, the attorney representing Leading Light Wind, wrote that the company “cannot move forward” under the terms the BPU set out. In the letter, the company withdrew their request for another delay.
November 11, 2025 — New Jersey environmental officials and food distributor Sysco Corporation announced a partnership Nov. 10 to recycle more seafood shell from restaurants and expand the state’s program for building oyster reefs.
At a news conference at Sysco’s Buckhead Meat & Seafood processing facility in Lakewood, N.J., the state Department of Environmental Protection detailed how Sysco “will collect discarded oyster and clam shells from restaurants it serves across the region and provide them to the agency’s Shell Recycling Program for oyster reef enhancement projects that could potentially expand to multiple sites along the state’s coastline.”
It’s an ancient principle of shellfish growers that oyster larvae need to attach to a hard substrate to develop – preferably clean oyster or clam shells. With water quality improvements, enterprising New Jersey shellfishermen began working on leased grounds for aquaculture leases, and by the 1990s a commercial oyster revival showed the potential for future growth.
“Sysco is excited to partner with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to scale a project we have been interested in for several years,” John Yates, president of Buckhead Meat & Seafood’s Mid-Atlantic Region, said in a joint statement with DEP officials. “Preserving and restoring oyster reefs is not only important for the shellfish themselves but also to the broader marine ecosystem and our communities that rely on this for critical proteins.”
October 23, 2025 – Each year, the Sweeney Center for Public Policy at Rowan University in New Jersey hosts a conference on the state’s current and future energy landscape. In 2023 and 2024, the gatherings focused heavily on the rapidly accelerating development of offshore wind, which state officials then predicted would power some 2.5 million homes — about two-thirds of the state’s total housing units — by 2030. At this year’s event, however, the industry was barely mentioned, and when it was, its one-time advocates were subdued and almost eulogistic.
Tim Sullivan, the head of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, which had been closely involved with the state’s efforts to develop offshore wind, sounded wistful. “I remain optimistic and confident that it gets done sometime in our lifetime,” he told the conference.
Optimism about the future of U.S. offshore wind has collapsed since President Trump, a vehement critic of the industry, returned to office in January. In the ensuing nine months, his administration has accelerated the end of federal tax credits for wind development, imposed tariffs on turbines and other needed parts, and eliminated funds for building onshore port facilities for servicing wind farms.
October 1, 2025 — If you are a New Jersey commercial fisherman, or a shoreside business for commercial fishing, you can be compensated for any negative outcomes of the construction and operation of Empire Wind.
Empire Wind is the first wind farm to be built off New Jersey; it is being built 19 miles off Long Branch. Currently, they are about halfway done with construction, the company says. Empire Wind is owned by the Kingdom of Norway, a majority shareholder in Norwegian renewable energy company Equinor.
“Empire Wind is continuing to work with the fishing community to avoid and mitigate any project impacts,” said Empire Wind. “A fisheries compensation program has been established to provide compensation to commercial and charter/for hire fishermen along with shoreside businesses that have been economically impacted by construction and operations activities.”
September 19, 2025 — Displaying frustration and skepticism with the management of striped bass, and now faced with potential seasonal closures, one by one recreational fishermen who went to the Stafford firehouse Tuesday, for the public hearing on Draft Addendum III, pleaded to keep the “status quo” rather than go forward with a strategy to reduce striped bass mortality by 12%.
It was a nearly unanimous room, but there were two people who voiced their opinon in support of the reduction.
About 100 party and charter boat captains, tackle shop owners and anglers shuffled into the firehouse and filled out the rows of metal fold-out chairs for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s presentation of the addendum’s options to meet what several recreational industry members in the room said is an “unobtainable” rebuilding goal.
September 15, 2025 — America’s menhaden fishery is one of the great success stories of U.S. seafood production – a renewable, sustainably managed resource that supports thousands of jobs, fuels rural economies, and delivers essential products to global markets.
This longstanding industry, rooted for generations along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, often finds itself at the center of debate – praised as a model of science-based management by some, while questioned by others concerned about its ecological footprint and role in coastal economies.
What happens in these policy debates carries real weight for the communities, small businesses, and working families whose livelihoods are tied directly to menhaden.
From Reedville, Virginia, to Moss Point, Mississippi, and from Cape May, New Jersey, to Empire and Abbeville, Louisiana, the fishery forms the backbone of local economies. The industry supports not only fishing crews but also dock workers, plant employees, welders, mechanics, truck drivers, shipbuilders, and countless vendors.
September 12, 2025 — If you fish for striped bass, sell bait & tackle, run a for-hire boat, or simply just appreciate the fish, you should do your civic duty and take the drive to the Stafford Township Fire Co. this coming Tuesday (Sept. 16) for the 6 p.m. start to the public hearing on Draft Addendum 7, which aims to reduce the mortality of striped bass by 12%.
One should also prepare themselves by reading the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission 67-page Draft Addendum 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, ahead of time. It is available on the ASMFC’s website.
In a nutshell, the ASMFC has been running up the red flag that striped bass are overfished. It has a 2029 goal of restoring the female spawning stock biomass to 247 million pounds, a benchmark set in 1995, the last time the stock was declared recovered. The spawning stock, according to 2023 data, currently sits at 191 million pounds, which is below the threshold of 197 million pounds — the overfished line.
September 5, 2025 — Kirk Larson, a fishing enthusiast who was mayor of Barnegat Light for nearly three decades, died suddenly over Labor Day weekend, according to an obituary and several public officials.
Larson, who died Saturday, was 71. A cause of death was not immediately known.
The mayor was likely best known for co-owning the commercial fishing docks at the Viking Village shops, a staple of Long Beach Island known for its seafood market. Using a fleet of boats, he ran a scallop-catching enterprise out of the docks, which supplied seafood for restaurants, wholesalers, fish markets and supermarkets across the area.