March 25, 2026 — The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has notified NOAA Fisheries of its intent to sue the agency after it denied a petition to list horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
“Horseshoe crabs watched the dinosaurs come and go, but now they face their greatest threat yet: us,” CBD Senior Attorney Danny Waltz said in a release. “Fortunately, we also have the power to save horseshoe crabs by protecting them under the Endangered Species Act.”
March 24, 2026 — During spring 2025, scientists conducted the most extensive aerial survey of ice-associated seals to date. The survey took place between April 4 and June 10, 2025, off the coasts of western and northern Alaska. The goal was to determine the abundance and regional distribution of four species in U.S. waters: bearded, ringed, spotted, and ribbon seals.
This survey used multispectral camera systems enabled with artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and document seals hauled out on the spring sea ice. We will use data from these sightings to estimate species abundance and distribution—critical information used to monitor and manage wildlife populations.
Bearded, ringed, spotted, and ribbon seals are known collectively as ice seals because they use seasonal sea ice as a platform to rest and raise their young. They also haul out on the ice while they undergo an annual molt cycle. Molting is an energy-intensive process of shedding the top layer of skin to reveal a new fur coat. All ages of ice seals undergo this process each spring. This provides a short window when many seals are out of the water and available to be counted from the air.
The research is part of the Alaska Ice Seal Research Plan, which outlines key research priorities for these animals. The plan is developed each year in collaboration with the Alaska Native Ice Seal Committee’s Co-management Working Group. Seals are vital resources for northern coastal Alaska Native communities and are key species in Arctic marine ecosystems. Abundance estimates and distribution maps are crucial for sound decision-making about:
Researchers included scientists from the NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center and the University of Washington’s Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies
Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries
March 18, 2026 — The head of NOAA Fisheries said the U.S. needs better commercial fishery representatives on regional fishery management councils, but he acknowledged nominations are a political process that limits his control of who takes those seats.
“We need to have better council members and better managers,” NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler said. “You need council members who are more involved and knowledgeable of science and economics, the damage that they can do, international issues.”
March 18, 2026 — U.S. lawmakers in Congress are continuing to prioritize spending to address ongoing issues between the New England lobster industry and the endangered North Atlantic right whale, a species whose habitat overlaps with valuable fishing grounds.
The North Atlantic right whale population – which began experiencing an “unusual mortality event” in 2017 – hit a low in 2020, when researchers estimated their population at just 358 individuals. The declining population triggered regulatory efforts to save the species and help it recover, but those efforts have clashed with the commercial fishing industry in the region, which has come under fire for entanglements and vessel strikes.
March 13, 2026 — Atlantic bluefin tuna migrate over long distances and spend much of their lives in the open ocean, making them notoriously challenging to study. A question persisted for decades: Where exactly do they spawn in the western Atlantic? Now, new research provides more clarity.
Working with partners, NOAA Fisheries scientists did a deep dive into bluefin tuna spawning patterns. They compiled a large dataset from fisheries surveys, archive and museum specimens, and research cruise reports going back to the 1950s. Their analysis included more than 35,000 plankton tows, and they examined nearly 5,000 individual tuna larvae. The results, published in Progress in Oceanography, indicate that bluefin tuna have a much broader spawning distribution than previously recognized. In addition to the known spawning ground in the Gulf of America, bluefin spawn in:
Of these areas, the northern Gulf in the late spring and the western Slope Sea in the early summer produce the most larvae. The results suggest that bluefin spawn in a continuous area during a prolonged spawning season. Spawning starts in April in the southernmost areas—the northwest Caribbean and southern Gulf of America—and ends in early August in the northernmost spawning area, the Slope Sea.
Research fish biologist Dave Richardson, the lead author of the study, explained, “Previous larval studies outside the Gulf of America were often based on a single year of sampling. When we compiled data from many surveys, the consistency was remarkable. When you sample the same area at the same time of year, you consistently find bluefin larvae. This confirmed the pattern we’ve seen in recent years has been going on for a long time. For example, bluefin larvae have been collected from the 1970s through the 2000s in both the Yucatan Channel in the south and the Slope Sea in the north.”
Historically, bluefin tuna have been managed as two stocks—one that spawns in the Mediterranean Sea (the eastern) and the other that spawns in the Gulf of America (the western). Recent larval and reproductive sampling added the Slope Sea to the list of known spawning grounds. Previous research suggests that the populations may mix in the Slope Sea. The scientists conducting this study wanted to know where else bluefin tuna spawn. Mapping all of their spawning grounds is critical to provide a more realistic picture of the population structure. It could also show the extent to which there are unique groups of fish that primarily interbreed with one another.
March 13, 2026 — At the 14th Meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fishery Management Organisation (SPRFMO), the United States took action to protect American consumers and the U.S. fishing industry. We advanced sustainable management and ensured compliance in fisheries that export fish to the United States, which is a priority for this Administration and NOAA.
The meeting was held February 24–March 6, 2026 in Panama City, Panama. The United States led the effort to control effort in the jumbo flying squid fishery through adoption of a conservation and management measure. It included a U.S.-proposed 15 percent reduction in the number and size of the vessels allowed to participate in the fishery. The high seas squid fishery in the SPRFMO Convention Area has been the subject of significant allegations of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and uncontrolled expansion. There are also concerns about labor abuses, particularly onboard Chinese-flagged vessels. The Chinese squid jigging fleet is the largest in the Convention Area, with more that 57 percent of the authorized squid jigging vessels flagged to China.
“The work of this Commission is critical to addressing the widespread concerns about illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in the squid fishery off the west coast of South America, and the United States has been leading the charge to advance these efforts,” noted Eugenio Piñiero-Soler, NOAA Assistant Administrator. From 2022–2024, the United States imported almost 40.5 billion kilograms of squid, valued at more than $215 billion, from China alone.
March 12, 2026 — A NOAA Fisheries snapshot report concluded that the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fleet “cannot sustainably compete” with imported shrimp, though the authors suggest domestic harvesters can find success by presenting Gulf shrimp as a differentiated or premium product.
“This report puts numbers to the economic challenges facing the U.S. shrimp industry. Achieving a truly resilient Gulf shrimp industry hinges on its ability to sustain profitability,” NOAA National Seafood Advisor Sarah Shoffler said in a release. “The path forward will likely involve a strategic combination of technological investment, market differentiation, and robust public-private partnerships. We are committed to exploring solutions that could support this industry into the future.”
March 11, 2026 — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed reclassifying squids and other cephalopods as shellfish, removing its responsibility for regulating those fishery products and ensuring they are regulated by NOAA Fisheries like other mollusks.
Current U.S. law describes shellfish narrowly as “an aquatic invertebrate having a shell.” Despite being mollusks and being considered shellfish by NOAA, squids and octopi do not have external shells, precluding them from falling into the shellfish category under U.S. law
March 11, 2026 — In a matter of weeks, more than 20 North Atlantic right whale mothers and their babies will begin swimming hundreds of miles up the East Coast to their feeding grounds.
Their offshore route from the northern Florida and Georgia coasts north to New England slices through waters heavily traveled by seagoing vessels, making the journey for these critically endangered whales particularly dangerous.
Ship and boat strikes, along with fishing gear entanglement, are the leading killers of North Atlantic right whales, of which there are roughly 384 on the planet.
To reduce the strike threat, vessels 65 feet or longer are supposed to heed speed limits of no faster than 10 knots when traveling through federally-designated seasonal management areas, or those where right whales and heavy vessel traffic overlap. Though not required, vessels shorter than 65 feet in length are encouraged to slow to speeds of 10 knots or slower within those areas.
March 10, 2026 — A massive marine heatwave warmed the eastern Pacific Ocean through much of 2025, but the wind-driven upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that drives the rich marine productivity of the West Coast kept the ecosystem healthy.
That is the conclusion of the California Current Ecosystem Status Report, an annual assessment of the West Coast marine ecosystem by NOAA’s California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment team. The report provides ecological insight for the Pacific Fishery Management Council and others on the ecological, social, and economic factors likely to influence fisheries and other ocean uses in the coming year.
The report assesses conditions and trends over the last year for insight on coming seasons. The leading takeaways from the annual report include:
This year’s report also highlights new technology, ocean forecasts, and collaborations with vessel operators that provide fishing fleets and managers with timely ecosystem insight that helps support sustainable fisheries. It includes projections that many marine species will move farther offshore and into deeper waters as the ocean warms, which could affect fishing fleets and their communities on the West Coast.
Researchers from the NOAA Fisheries Northwest and Southwest Fisheries Science Centers presented the findings to the Council this week. They said abundant forage such as krill, juvenile rockfish, and anchovy helped boost species including salmon, squid, seabirds, and more.
“Warming continues to be an inescapable reality off the West Coast, but upwelling saved the day,” said Andrew Leising, a research oceanographer at the NOAA Fisheries Southwest Fisheries Science Center and an editor of the annual ecosystem reports. “The cold water influx helped hold off the marine heatwave and sustained many of the fisheries and species the California Current is known for.”