Saving Seafood

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 

ALASKA: Aleut community pivots from fishing to research, education as climate change threatens its economy

February 3, 2025 — As warming waters threaten traditional fishing economies in the Bering Sea, the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island (ACSPI) is building a new future focused on research and higher education.

Plummeting populations of snow crab and halibut in the Bering Sea have cost ACSPI roughly $2.7 million a year in lost harvest revenue, according to the tribe’s president, John Melovidov. The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) say the losses will worsen, with a 2024 report projecting the conditions supporting snow crab are 200 times more likely to disappear compared to the pre-industrial era.

“Fishing isn’t always what it used to be,” Melovidov told Tribal Business News. “Outlooks aren’t so great, but we can’t sit here and hope that things come back. We have to do something different.”

The community has begun diversifying its fishing-based economy through partnerships. In July 2024, ACSPI signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Iḷisaġvik College, an Iñupiaq tribal college on Alaska’s North Slope, to establish a satellite campus and research station on the island. The agreement builds on a partnership that began with workforce training in 2018 and expanded to MOAs in 2022 and 2023 that focused on educational opportunities and dual-credit programs for high school students.

Read the full article at Tribalism Business News

Trump nominee vows to keep NOAA intact, stop “communist fish” from entering US

February 3, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Commerce Howard Lutnick told U.S. senators at his confirmation hearing that he would not dismantle NOAA and would work to protect American fishers.

Under questioning from lawmakers, Lutnick said that he looked forward to working with the president in implementing tariffs to gain respect from foreign nations.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US bill would create new method for testing red snapper and tuna country of origin

January 31, 2025 — United States senators have introduced legislation that would task the federal government with developing a new methodology for identifying where tuna and red snapper sold in the U.S. originated from.

If passed, the Illegal Red Snapper and Tuna Enforcement Act would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NOAA with creating a field test kit that uses a chemical agent to determine whether red snapper or certain species of tuna originated in foreign waters.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

CALIFORNIA: California Invests $15 Million On Salmon, Trout Habitat Resiliency

January 31, 2025 — California is investing $15 million to offset climate change threats to salmon and steelhead trout in river and stream habitats through projects that improve watersheds such as adding wood and plants.

In December, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries determined after a five-year review of recovery efforts that four salmon and steelhead species of fish in northern California and southern Oregon should continue to be designated as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Read the full article at Forbes