Saving Seafood

US House lawmakers clash over rumors of NOAA funding cuts

February 13, 2025 — Democrats in U.S. Congress are warning that rumored cuts to NOAA would endanger the agency’s ability to adequately manage the nation’s commercial fisheries.

“Last week, the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency entered NOAA facilities and accessed data and files,” U.S. Representative Val Hoyle (D-Oregon) said during a 12 February U.S. House Natural Resources Committee markup meeting. “Furthermore, NOAA employees are reporting rumors of severe budget cuts that would gut essential programs and jobs that our fishermen and our communities rely on. Basic responsibilities such as providing grants to regional fishery management councils for their operations and routine fisheries stock assessments could be delayed or canceled.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

WHOI Resets Ocean De-Acidification Test for This Summer

February 13, 2025 — With the federal government following a blueprint to deter climate research at agencies like the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a private marine research nonprofit, are hoping to forge ahead with an experiment to explore how ocean waters might be used to absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

WHOI is awaiting approval from the Environmental Protection Agency on a permit to continue work initially scheduled for last summer off Martha’s Vineyard. It involves releasing 16,500 gallons of sodium hydroxide into the ocean to gauge its ability to improve the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

The experiment is now set to take place in an area called Wilkinson Basin, about 38 miles northeast of Provincetown. The period for public comments on the permit closes on Feb. 14.

The technique, known as ocean alkalinity enhancement, or OAE, has been the subject of laboratory experiments for decades, but this field test will be the first of its kind in U.S. waters. It aims to validate WHOI’s experiments that suggest OAE can effectively absorb carbon without harming the local environment.

A similar test that was set to take place off Martha’s Vineyard last fall was postponed when permitting was slowed by questions and additional monitoring requirements from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to an August report in the Boston Globe. By the time the WHOI researchers got the green light, the U.S. Academic Research Fleet vessel needed for the experiment was not available, according to WHOI associate scientist Adam Subhas, the principal investigator of the project.

The Provincetown Independent

North Atlantic Right Whale, Calf Spotted Off NJ as Rutgers Debuts AI Tool to Protect Endangered Species

February 13, 2025 — If recent reports of a North Atlantic right whale calf and its mother spotted in a busy shipping lane between New Jersey and New York are any indication that more are to come, an artificial intelligence tool developed by Rutgers University scientists to protect them, among other marine mammals, could quiet the offshore wind debate over how to keep the endangered species safe from harm’s way.

On Feb. 3, an aerial team from the NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center spotted the right whale, identified as Accordion, named for the propeller scars on her back that resemble the instrument, and her calf, according to NOAA.

Read the full article at The Sand Paper

Department of Government Efficiency eyes NOAA

February 12, 2025 — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) entered the offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Silver Spring, Maryland a week ago. This earned criticism from former NOAA officials as well as members of the public.

NOAA’s mission stands to research and predict changes in the environment of the United States of America. This includes studies of weather, climate, oceans, and coasts. The organization was established in October of 1970 as part of the US Chamber of Commerce and currently contains multiple offices that help NOAA follow their mission. The National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Ocean Service, and more.

Read the full article at NBC Montana

Wild Fish Conservancy to sue NOAA over missed deadlines for potential Chinook salmon protections

February 12, 2025 — Conservation advocacy group Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) plans to sue NOAA Fisheries after the agency missed deadlines for responding to its petition seeking Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for Chinook salmon in Alaska.

WFC announced in January 2024 that it was petitioning the government to implement protections for the species due to “the severe decline and poor condition of Chinook populations” in Alaska. WFC listed several factors contributing to the fish population’s drastic decline, including mixed-stock commercial and sport fishing, bycatch from industrial trawlers, climate change, logging and mining operations, and competition from hatchery-raised fish.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Federal Lobster Permit Holders: Lobster Trap Tag Ordering Instructions

February 12, 2025 — You must renew your federal lobster permit and order new lobster trap tags if you intend to fish for lobsters in federal waters with trap gear during the 2025 fishing year. This guide outlines how to order your trap tags.  You must renew your permit through the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office’s Fish Online. Fish Online is the website where you can submit electronic vessel trip reports, check your landings data, and manage your vessel’s permits. In some cases, you may be required to order trap tags through your state fisheries agency, as explained below.

To fish with lobster traps in federal waters, you must:

  1. Be eligible to fish in at least one lobster management area; and
  2. Select at least one lobster management area, which your permit qualifies for, on your federal permit renewal application.

Once your federal permit is issued for fishing year 2025, we will forward the lobster management areas you select on your Federal permit renewal application to Cambridge Security Seals so they appear on your 2025 trap tags. Only fishing year 2025 tags purchased through CSS will be considered valid on or after June 1, 2025. If you purchase your trap tags through a state agency, you must choose the same lobster management areas on the state’s trap tag order forms that you have chosen on your Federal permit renewal application. You must attach a 2025 trap tag to each fished lobster trap.

The deadline for attaching the 2025 trap tags to your lobster traps is June 1, 2025.  You are encouraged to renew your federal permit and apply for trap tags as soon as possible so that your tags can be authorized, manufactured, and mailed ahead of planned fishing activity.

Your federal lobster trap permit must be renewed before we will authorize CSS to issue tags for 2025.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

Democrats concerned DOGE is targeting NOAA, sources say

February 6, 2025 — Democrats on Capitol Hill, and sources familiar with the situation, said the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been inside the offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The White House DOGE team is a cost-cutting initiative created by President Trump to find ways to trim federal spending. Billionaire Elon Musk is in charge of it, categorized as a “special government employee.”

Former NOAA officials told CBS News that current employees have been told to expect a 50% reduction in staff and budget cuts of 30%.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who represents the state where NOAA is headquartered, said his office is investigating DOGE’s work on NOAA, which includes such agencies as the National Weather Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full article at CBS News

Most US fishery observers don’t report harassment, study claims

February 6, 2025 — Harassment of fishery observers is more prevalent than previously thought, with a new study finding that less than half of observers who experience harassment disclose any incidents.

Funded by NOAA Fisheries, the study was published in the Frontiers research journal 28 January, 2025. NOAA researchers estimated that roughly 22 to 38 percent of fishery observers in the North Pacific are harassed annually, more than twice the number that file official disclosures.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Whales recorded in large numbers off New Jersey coast

February 6, 2025 — Whales are gathering in large numbers off New Jersey in a portion of the Atlantic Ocean called the New York Bight, according to several sources.

Viking Yacht Company of New Gretna, Burlington County, posted to Facebook that a large group of North Atlantic right whales, an endangered species with only about 360 individuals left, was congregating in the New York Bight between the Hudson Canyon off Sandy Hook and Block Canyon off Montauk, New York.

The New York Bight is a triangular area of ocean that stretches between the Jersey Shore and Long Island.

“NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has used planes to identify the whales — present due to large amounts of food,” Viking Yacht staff wrote on Facebook. “We’re advising boaters to be vigilant. If whale(s) are seen, provide a wide berth.”

Read the full article at the Asbury Park Press

Study suggests algal blooms disorient whales, putting them in danger

February 4, 2025 — When certain algae flourish in the sea, they produce neurotoxins that can sicken both humans and marine animals. Acute exposure to these toxins is known to kill whales and other marine mammals outright, but many carry the toxins chronically without displaying obvious symptoms. The authors of a new study suggest these chronic exposures may nonetheless prove lethal.

The study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science in November, found an association between so-called harmful algal blooms (HABs) and whale deaths due to human causes in U.S. waters. The authors propose the reason may be that HAB toxins disorient whales, increasing their vulnerability to ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear, which were by far the main causes of death and injury in the data they analyzed.

“Non-fatal concentrations of algal neurotoxins may render whales more susceptible to injury because they are less able to respond to entangling fishing gear and oncoming ships,” study lead author Greg Silber, an independent researcher and former coordinator of whale recovery efforts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told Mongabay by email. “Knowing this provides an opportunity to reduce whale mortality by using algal bloom prediction capabilities.”

More algal blooms, more whale deaths

To explore the link between HABs and whale deaths, Silber and his daughter and coauthor, Katy Silber, an ecologist at the Institute for Applied Ecology in Santa Fe, New Mexico, studied the timing and location of HAB events alongside large whale mortalities and injuries in U.S. coastal waters. They analyzed data from the East Coast (2000-2021) and West Coast (2007-2021), from UNESCO’s Harmful Algal Event Database, and NOAA’s National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. And they looked only at cases of whale injury or death attributed to human activities, excluding those attributed to natural or unknown causes.

Their main finding? “The number of mortalities/injuries was frequently higher in years with large-scale or severe HABs,” the paper states.

Although yearly changes occurred, both human-caused whale deaths and injuries and HABs showed general increases over time. The paper suggests that while improved monitoring and public reporting may partly explain this rise, year-to-year variations in HABs are influenced by oceanographic processes and warming ocean temperatures linked to climate change. HABs are also intensified by human activities that provide excess nutrients for algae growth.

The study also found differences between the two coasts. On the Pacific coast, it found a clear correlation between HABs and human-caused whale deaths and injuries: In areas with active HABs, there were at least three more whale deaths or injuries compared to places without HABs. On the Atlantic coast, the connection was still there but weaker. This might be because the ocean conditions, algal species, or the way whale and HAB data are collected differ between the two coasts, the researchers wrote.

Read the full article at Mongabay