Saving Seafood

NOAA Fisheries intercepted illegal tuna shipment destined for US grocery chain

June 3, 2025 — NOAA Fisheries has fined a U.S. grocery chain USD 12,516 (EUR 10,961) for illegally importing yellowfin tuna.

According to the agency, NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Law Enforcement collaborated with Virginia Conservation Police and U.S. Customs and Border Protection on a joint inspection of a container shipment at the Centralized Examination Station in Chesapeake, Virginia, U.S.A. Inside, law enforcement found more than 1,100 pounds of jarred yellowfin tuna with a declared value of USD 4,889 (EUR 4,281) destined for a grocery store chain.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

GAO: Faster, clearer fishery disaster relief from NOAA

May 30, 2025 — A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for managing fishery disaster assistance, takes too long to get relief into the hands of fishermen, and that’s costing coastal communities across the country.

Since 2014, NMFS has received 111 requests for fishery resource disaster assistance. For 56 of the most recently approved requests, the agency took between 1.3 and 4.8 years to disburse $642 million. The agency is altering the program in an effort to reduce the process to 1 year, the report stated.

 The long delays have left states, Tribes, and fishing communities struggling in the wake of disasters like hurricanes, oil spills, and flooding. In one example, the 2019 Gulf of Mexico freshwater flooding event caused over $101 million in losses to Louisianans’ fisheries alone.

The GAO report highlights the systemic issues, including “inadequate communication about request status,” limited access to internal tracking systems, and a lack of clear guidance on how to prepare disaster requests on spend plans. “Providing more detailed information on its website would better inform requesters about the information they need to submit,” the report states.

NMFS has begun implementing statutory timelines added in the 2022 Fishery Resource Disasters Improvement Act (FRDIA), which could help shorten the disaster relief timeline to just over a year. Early signs show some improvement; the median time to make a determination dropped from 282 days for 2022 requests to 140 days for those submitted in the first half of 2024.

The GAO found that “no disaster requests had gone through the entire process to disburse funds to the requested since FRDIA’s additional timelines, as of August 2024.” In the meantime, communities are left hanging.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NOAA predicts colder than normal deep-water temperatures for the Gulf of Maine

May 30, 2025 — The Gulf of Maine will again experience colder than normal bottom-water temperatures, according to a new forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA projects deep water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine will be cooler by 0.9 to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit this summer, compared to the seasonal average. The outlook is based on new models developed by NOAA researchers that provide large-scale predictions of the ocean and regional ecosystem changes.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Lutnick rejects NOAA rule to revise Atlantic cod management plan

May 29, 2025 — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick rejected a scientifically vetted regulation to help protect Atlantic cod Wednesday, citing concerns about the proposed rule’s interference with a national policy to achieve “optimum yield” of highly sought-after commercial fish species.

The regulation — known as Amendment 25 — was crafted by the New England Fishery Management Council and supported by conservation organizations that said it was essential to accurately monitor cod populations that continue to be overfished.

It was opposed by two fishing industry groups that said the amendment needed to be reworked in a more “deliberative and informed way,” including language about annual catch limits and other restrictions.

Read the full article at E&E News

Restoration Revitalizes Fish Stock, Brings Community Together

May 29, 2025 — In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, commercial fish species in the Gulf of America (formerly the Gulf of Mexico) were significantly impacted. The Oceanic Fish Restoration Project, part of NOAA’s restoration efforts after the spill, partnered with the pelagic longline fishing community to help rebuild robust fisheries in the Gulf.

The Unique Challenges of Restoring Open Ocean Fisheries

For commercial fishermen, the spill halted their business instantly. The plume of oil, and other chemicals, exposed fish at all life stages to toxic levels of contaminants.

It also happened at the worst possible time for some fish: spawning season. Eggs, embryos, and larvae were all especially vulnerable to the impacts of oil and other contaminants. Unable to mature and reproduce, another generation of fish was lost. As Captain Ally Mercier in Pompano Beach, Florida said, after the spill, “the water was so polluted… there was [sic] just no fish.”

Restoration in the deep waters away from coastlines presents a unique challenge. “We can’t just replant fish,” explains Ellen Bolen, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Director of Marine and Coastal Restoration. NFWF is a partner in the project.

The Gulf’s pelagic longline fishery is made up of around 30 vessels along the coast from Texas to Florida. They use longline gear in the open ocean to catch fish like yellowfin tuna, swordfish, and mahi mahi, supplying seafood to the Gulf region and beyond. But longlines often catch juveniles with no commercial value and when caught, young fish typically don’t survive. Reducing this bycatch and increasing survivability rates were the key to replenishing these species.

Rebuilding robust oceanic fish populations would require keeping juveniles in the water longer—and giving them time to reproduce—all the while continuing to support the fishing industry.

Partnering with Industry to Develop a Plan

To help reduce bycatch and support open ocean fisheries, NOAA and partners focused on using a different type of fishing gear. The gear would still catch what the fishermen were after, but would also greatly reduce the number of juvenile fish killed in the process.

To understand more about the fishing community—who they were, how their fishery operated, and what their needs were—the project team connected directly with community members.

Sandy Nguyen came aboard as a critical partner and the project’s first community liaison. She encouraged the fishing community to apply to participate and supported them through the administrative process of coming on board.

Rebuilding pelagic fish populations was a goal shared by federal and state agencies, fishermen, surrounding communities, and more. As the project came to life, another community liaison joined: Bobby Nguyen. “Everybody that’s connected to this project is hoping to give a fighting chance for these fish to come back,” he said.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Washington Students Dive into Salmon Science with NOAA Biologists at Annual Summit

May 29, 2025 — Biologists from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center again participated in the celebration of Pacific salmon held every spring for elementary students from Benton County, Washington. The “Salmon Summit” on April 29–30, 2025, culminated months of learning about salmon life cycles in the classroom.

Fourth graders from several elementary schools first raise juvenile Chinook salmon from egg to par. They learn about the salmon life cycle as part of the Salmon in the Classroom program managed by the Benton Conservation District. The students also work with NOAA Fisheries scientists, who help dissect an adult male and female salmon in class.

“We’ve been visiting classrooms every year since 2011,” said Jesse Lamb, fisheries biologist with Pasco Research Station. “And every year, we love educating students about the thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of salmon swimming up the Columbia River within just a few miles of their homes.”

This year, Lamb joined fisheries scientist Loren Stearman to visit eight elementary schools to conduct salmon dissections and teach more than 600 students about salmon anatomy.

That prepares them for the 2-day Salmon Summit event in Kennewick, Washington. More than 3,200 students learned about salmon science at 72 hands-on, interactive stations staffed by state and federal agencies, tribes, and nonprofit organizations. At the NOAA Fisheries tagging station, students saw how we use passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag technology to conduct research on salmon and steelhead throughout the Pacific Northwest. With electrofishing and seining gear on display, scientists described how the gear is used to capture juvenile salmon parr in remote streams before they migrate downstream.

“Tagging fish in real time is an eye-opening experience for some of these students. It’s also a chance for us to demonstrate an approach that we’ve been using for more than 3 decades to monitor the movement, growth, and survival of threatened wild Chinook salmon in the Snake River and its tributaries,” said Stearman.

Snake River Chinook salmon are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. NOAA Fisheries biologists use juvenile Chinook salmon from hatcheries that the students have been rearing in their classrooms to demonstrate our research protocol. First they anesthetize the fish, then tag and measure them. Students get to inspect a PIT tag as biologists explain how it provides information about the fish’s movement. The biologists demonstrate how the tag code and fish length and weight data are stored digitally for each unique individual.

Finally, the students release a tagged fish through a special tank and hose that sends it directly into the Columbia River to start its journey.

“The students always have questions about the likelihood of their fish surviving to the ocean and eventually returning to spawn. That’s our chance to pique their interest about the many threats facing salmon throughout their life cycle, and perhaps inspire the next generation to pursue a career in saving salmon,” said Lamb.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

New trawl net to cut costs and boost survey accuracy

May 29, 2025 — A collaborative sea trial aboard NOAA’s vessel Bell M. Shimada has set the stage for a more efficient and cost-effective approach to fishery surveys on the West Coast.

Fishing industry leaders joined NOAA Fisheries scientists in testing an innovative new trawl net designed to gather more accurate data in less time and at lower cost.

Developed in partnership with industry experts, the Multi-Function Trawl (MFT) net is engineered to combine two separate West Coast fisheries surveys that had previously relied on different nets. The Adjustable design allows a single vessel to “more safely gather more data in less time and at lower cost,” according to NOAA.

“The new trawl, which uses the same design features and technologies used by many fishermen, increases our confidence in the survey results,” Greg Shaughnessy, chief operating officer at Ocean Gold Seafoods in Westport, Washington, said. Shaughnessy, a long-time industry collaborator, became interested in the survey process after observing the sudden decline of sardines off the Northwest Coast in 2015. “I needed to understand how these surveys work,” he recalled. “You have to have the best available science to get the management right.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Lawsuit filed in effort to protect endangered Rice’s whales in the Gulf

May 22, 2025 — A lawsuit has been filed to force the federal government to protect endangered Rice’s whales in the Gulf. Scientists believe there are fewer than 50 remaining.

Federal regulators recently released a “biological opinion” that found strikes by oil tankers and vessels in the Gulf’s well fields are likely to threaten the existence of Rice’s whales.

The lawsuit is asking for stronger restrictions on speeds and for ships to keep at least 500 yards from visible whales.

NOAA Fisheries Service estimates that nine Rice’s whales would be killed and three seriously injured over the next 45 years. Chris Eaton, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, said that might doom the species.

“The Fisheries Service has said because the population is so low that if just one female dies, that could send the species to extinction,” Eaton said. “And the problem with this biological opinion is that it recognizes that risk, but doesn’t provide adequate measures to prevent that risk to those species.”

The Department of the Interior can lease areas of the Gulf to oil and gas drillers. But first, the Fisheries Service must study how endangered species are likely to be harmed.

NOAA Fisheries said the proposed rule would make lethal vessel strikes “extremely unlikely to occur.”

Read the full article at WUSF

Seafood Producers Cooperative response to WFC lawsuit

May 22, 2025 — On behalf of the nearly 400 members of Seafood Producers Cooperative, who are very dependent on the wild chinook fishery for a large part of their livelihoods, and as such, are very supportive of conservation efforts regarding Chinook, I would like to respond to the recent news of another attempt by the Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC), in their typical fashion of accusations and demands via litigation, to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for not listing Alaska Wild King Salmon stocks under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which the WFC, in their opinion, feels is necessary.

Alaska possesses the largest coastline of all other states combined, over 33 thousand miles, with 19,000 rivers and streams that salmon spawn in. To undertake a scientific study that identifies the Chinook returns to these spawning areas is a huge task, and to complete this with any degree of accuracy could take years. With NOAA currently facing major budget reductions, it is likely that NMFS will be even more challenged in their ability to conduct the studies to determine whether Chinook ESA listing is warranted or not, in a time frame that satisfies the WFC.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Greens sue NOAA over delayed ESA decision on Alaska chinook salmon

May 21, 2025 — Environmentalists are suing NOAA for failing to issue an Endangered Species Act listing decision for Gulf of Alaska chinook salmon within one year of receiving a petition to protect the species.

In a filing before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Wild Fish Conservancy says NOAA’s listing decision delay means Alaskan chinook salmon “are more likely to continue to decline toward extinction.”

“The Endangered Species Act sets clear deadlines … to evaluate the risk of extinction and trigger action while recovery is still possible,” Emma Helverson, executive director of Wild Fish Conservancy, said in a statement. “By ignoring those deadlines, NOAA isn’t just breaking the law — it’s perpetuating the collapse of Alaskan chinook and threatening the ecosystems and communities that depend on them.”

Read the full article at E&E News