Saving Seafood

NOAA launches aquaculture research institute

June 9, 2026 –NOAA has launched a new initiative to improve the United States’ seafood competitiveness, the Cooperative Institute Fostering Aquaculture Research and Markets (CIFARM)

“By investing in aquaculture research and markets, NOAA Fisheries continues its commitment to improving sustainable American fisheries through science-based management,” NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler, said in a release. “We are proud to empower the industry to produce more seafood for American plates.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Proteins shine a light on Dungeness crab resilience

June 9, 2026 — Professor Brooke Love was already studying the effects of ocean acidification on sea life, but wanted to look into some new tools to aid her studies. After Love received the National Science Foundation’s Mid-Career Advancement Grant in 2020, she decided to learn molecular tools such as mass spectrometry to explore a microscopic angle.

Soon after, she found a study by Paul McElhany, who was researching Dungeness crabs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

McElhany had found a difference in survivability between the offspring, or zoea, of multiple Dungeness crab mothers collected in different regions when living in water with a high concentration of CO2.

“There was this really interesting story where some crab moms produced zoea that survived well, and others produced zoea that didn’t survive well. But we didn’t know anything about why,” said Love, an environmental science professor who works both in Bellingham and at WWU’s Shannon Point Marine Center in Anacortes. “So it struck me as a really good opportunity to use some molecular tools to try to dig a little deeper and understand the mechanisms that led to the response that we found in that experiment.”

The NOAA group initially hypothesized that water conditions, such as oxygen and CO2 levels, at the sites where the crab mothers were collected could influence the zoeae’s survivability and resistance to ocean acidification (OA), but ultimately they found that location had less of an impact than matrilineal lineage.

Read the full article at WWU News

Proposed NOAA cuts could hit Pacific weather forecasts, fisheries and coral programs

June 8, 2026 — The Trump administration’s proposed 2027 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would slash more than $1 billion from the agency and eliminate dozens of programs, raising concerns across the Pacific islands where communities rely heavily on weather forecasting, fisheries management and coastal conservation.

NOAA’s fiscal year 2027 budget request seeks $4.54 billion, a decrease of about $1.09 billion from the 2026 enacted level. The proposal includes more than $1.3 billion in program terminations and another $523 million in reductions, partially offset by investments in weather radar modernization, satellite systems and selected fisheries initiatives.

For Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the proposed cuts touch areas closely tied to daily life, from typhoon forecasting and marine observations to coral reef protection and coastal resilience.

The budget documents call for terminating the Coral Reef Conservation Program, ending Integrated Ocean Acidification efforts, eliminating regional Integrated Ocean Observing System programs and terminating Coastal Zone Management Grants. The proposal would also eliminate NOAA’s National Coastal Resilience Fund and reduce funding for ocean observations and monitoring.

Read the full article at the Marianas Variety

Fishermen prepared for the longest red snapper season in recent memory. A court order stopped it

June 5, 2026 — Miles from shore, Chris Kemp pumps and reels as he battles a fish 150 feet below. Eventually, it gives up, and the 10-pound red snapper is hauled aboard the Jodie Lynn II.

There’s barely time to rejoice. As Kemp raises his trophy for a picture, the charter boat’s captain rushes over and then drives a knifelike tool into the fish’s gas-filled bladder. The procedure, required by federal law, is intended to improve the fish’s chances of survival after release.

“Send it overboard,” orders the captain. And with that, Kemp’s hopes of bringing the fish home to eat was lost.

Recreational fishermen like Kemp are pitched against commercial fishermen and environmentalists in a legal dispute that has halted what was expected to be the longest snapper season in years, reflecting broader tensions over the Trump administration’s efforts to loosen fishing rules and deregulate the seas.

As part of those efforts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in May exempted states from some restrictions under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the landmark law that guides fisheries management. But the decision was halted at the last minute by a federal judge in Washington who blocked the plan.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

New England Aquarium pens letter opposing changes to vessel speed limit

June 4, 2026 — In a letter sent to the assistant administrator for NOAA fisheries last week, the New England Aquarium says it opposes efforts by the National Marine Fisheries Service to deregulate vessel speed limits designed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The speed limits were established in 2008 in management areas where right whales were observed during their migration. But earlier this year, NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service’s posted an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking of a “possible deregulatory action” to its website.

In its letter, the aquarium cited studies that say vessel strikes remain a threat to the small population of right whales left on the East Coast.

Between 2020 and 2025, 22 right whale vessel strikes were detected in U.S. waters, of which six were fatal and two resulted in serious injuries.

Read the full article at Maine Public 

Congress should heed the Pacific Ocean’s super El Niño warning

June 4, 2026 — Listen up, lawmakers: The Pacific Ocean is trying to send you a message about the federal budget.

About once every two to seven years, the Pacific trade winds weaken and water temperatures shift, causing profound impacts for the global climate. The phenomenon is called “El Niño.” The latest data from the world’s largest ocean are telling us that a “super El Niño: will likely develop this year, possibly among the most powerful such events ever recorded.

The possibility of a strong El Niño should serve as a wake-up call to Congress. Lawmakers are now considering the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the agency known by the acronym NOAA (pronounced “Noah”), which serves as America’s eyes and ears on the world of weather.

If lawmakers choose to hollow out and treat this agency as a set of separable parts, the consequences for American communities and for the national economy will be dire.

Lawmakers in Washington must fully fund the agency’s work to monitor global weather patterns and keep Americans informed. By doing so, they will protect us all.

Read the full article at The Hill

ALASKA: Harmful algae blooms are an increasing concern in Alaska due to climate change, NOAA says

June 3, 2026 — As oceanic temperatures continue to climb, harmful algal blooms have become an increasingly worrisome threat on the seabed floor of the Alaskan Arctic Ocean.

According to NOAA, a Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing-funded project conducted by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that warming waters are “causing algal blooms to occur more frequently in the Arctic Sea.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Northeast Science Center wants fishermen for mackerel cooperative research

May 29, 2026 — The Northeast Fisheries Science Center held a two-hour webinar May 22 kicking off a new season of mackerel cooperative research and looking for fishermen to share their skills and knowledge with scientists.

According to Anna Mercer, chief of the NEFSC’s cooperative research branch, fishermen bring valuable experience to collecting and interpreting data, which will help fill research gaps and improve models of reproduction, migration, and the effects of environmental drivers on population dynamics. 

Mercer notes that for the purposes of the stock assessment, the most critical information gaps include: how mackerel move between US and Canadian waters; when and where mackerel spawn; whether mackerel exhibit spawning site fidelity; how mackerel abundance and varies from year to year; and what environmental factors—such as temperature, plankton, predators, and others—drive the distribution and abundance of Atlantic mackerel. 

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

As oceans warm, NOAA scientists in the Chesapeake Bay are tracking how some fish are reacting

May 19, 2026 — This winter, a sudden cold snap led to fish kills around the Chesapeake Bay. Washed up on shores were Atlantic menhaden, and speckled trout. In 2025, a freeze killed young red drum.

Scientists have been studying movements of fish for decades. One team from the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science is in the middle of a three-year study of two of the Chesapeake Bay’s iconic trophy fish– red drum and striped bass.

They’re looking at how warming waters, extreme weather and other factors affect the fishes’ movements in and out of the bay.

Brianna Cahill is a marine ecologist working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She’s monitoring a transponding hydrophone, which is an underwater microphone.

“Okay, talking to it. The status it says armed, so that means that it’s still locked,” Cahill says from the deck of a small boat near the mouth of the bay. “We can go through and activate it.”

The hydrophone is talking to an acoustic receiver anchored to the bottom of the bay some 30 feet below that logs data from tagged fish. She’s telling it to come to the surface for retrieval.

Read the full article at WMRA

Rising California sea temperatures trigger legal requirement to protect endangered sea turtles

May 19, 2026 — A heatwave in the Pacific Ocean has triggered a legal requirement to protect loggerhead sea turtles, which are endangered species listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In a bulletin issued Monday morning, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) stated that officials from their office notified the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries of its legal responsibility to close a large area of the Pacific coast off to swordfish drift gillnets.

A drift gillnet is a type of fishing net that is not fixed to the seabed but allowed to drift with the current and is used to catch fish by having them swim into it. Some drift gillnet fleets can be over 10 kilometers (roughly 6.2 miles) long, and several fleets may be fished by a vessel at once, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Now, with the unusually warm waters off Southern California, wildlife officials say the NOAA Fisheries must act before June 1 to avoid a lawsuit.

Read the full article at KTLA