Saving Seafood

Environmental groups’ excessive court challenges are about raising funds, not protecting fisheries

January 2, 2025 — When you think of environmental groups working to protect iconic wildlife the mind’s eye often provides a romantic setting with activists defending dolphins on the high seas.

In reality, the bulk of that work is done in places like Charlotte, where millions of dollars are raised in boardrooms with those very images as the centerpiece. The story behind the story is that such campaigns may be much more about money than marine mammals.

In 2024 the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups sued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), forcing the government to implement a portion of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA.) Now they have rushed back to the court that oversaw their original settlement, ostensibly to complain about separate MMPA litigation.

Having pressured NOAA, after more than a decade of delays, into applying the protective policy, they now object to a different court settlement that allows a small handful of crab fisheries in four countries an additional 180 days to come into compliance with the rule.

Read the full article at the Charlotte Observer

 

ALASKA: Alaska fisheries in 2025: turmoil, economic and environmental challenges and some bright spots

December 26, 2025 — For Alaska’s fishing industry and fishing-dependent communities, 2025 was a year of turmoil and uncertainty, much of it imposed by ideological pursuits from the new Trump administration.

The short-lived agency called the Department of Government Efficiency hacked away at federal funding for science across the board. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in particular was in its crosshairs; the Heritage Institute’s Project 2025 blueprint for the second Trump administration heaped scorn on NOAA, saying its National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and other agencies “form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” The NMFS’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which does the bulk of the research on which fishery managers depend, was among the agencies that suffered deep budget and staffing cuts.

The prospect of more cuts is unsettling, some officials said. “I guess now we’re getting to a point that I’m getting really concerned and almost freaked out about how much data that we’re potentially losing that we’re used to having,” Anne Vanderhoeven, a member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, said on Dec. 4 during that body’s December meeting.

Read the full article at the Kodiak Daily Mirror

Federal government, opponents battle over right whale rule

December 23, 2025 — The federal government is trying to fend off a lawsuit challenging a boat speed limit designed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, which migrate each year to calving grounds off Northeast Florida and other parts of the Southeast.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys Friday filed a motion asking a Florida federal judge to uphold the speed limit in a challenge filed by boat captain Gerald Eubanks, who was fined $14,250 for exceeding the limit while piloting a boat from Florida to South Carolina in 2022.

Friday’s motion and a competing motion filed in October by Eubanks’ attorneys seek summary judgments, which would effectively resolve the case without going to trial. U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell on Friday scheduled an April 10 hearing.

The lawsuit, which names as defendants the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, challenges the fine and the legitimacy of a rule that limits speeds to 10 knots for vessels that are over 65 feet during certain times and places off the East Coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, includes the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Read the full article at WGCU

Former NOAA biologist publishes comprehensive history of Menhaden Fishery

December 23, 2025 — A new book, “Menhaden: A Biologist’s Thirty-Two Year Journey with the Fish and the Fishery,” by Morehead City resident Joe Smith, offers what Palmetto Publishing calls “an exhaustive look at the menhaden fisheries.” The book covers the history of both Atlantic and Gulf coast menhaden fisheries while offering an insider view of the industry and the biological knowledge of what is frequently referred to as “the most important fish in the sea.”

Smith said the book is “kind of a celebration of menhaden.”

Few are better qualified to celebrate the fish than Smith, who spent more than 30 years working with the National Marine Fisheries Service at the NOAA Beaufort Laboratory as part of the Menhaden Program launched in 1955.

Read the full article at Carteret County News-Times

Top Marine Stories and Posts You Loved in 2025

December 22, 2025 — This year proved, once again, that the ocean is truly a fascinating place. In 2025, our features ran the gamut from creatures of the deep and newly discovered species to killer whales and restoring American seafood competitiveness. Check out the list below and see if your favorite made the list!

Top Features

Stories on how ocean health is affecting marine life, how we’re working to enforce laws to protect marine mammals, and how our scientists discover brand new species were among the most widely read.

Early Bloom of Toxic Algae off Southern California Sickens Hundreds of Sea Lions and Dolphins

Rescue teams face hard decisions over which animals to save.

Responders received more than 100 calls a day reporting sick sea lions and dolphins

New Kids on the Block: Species Discovered by Our Scientists

Over the years, NOAA Fisheries scientists have discovered dozens of species. Learn more about these species and what we’ve learned about them.

We’ve discovered fish, marine mammals, and invertebrates

Diving into Creatures of the Deep

Dive in and learn about creatures of the deep. These mysterious species live way below the surface of the ocean.

Creatures that live in the deep ocean—from corals, to jellyfish, to octopus, and more

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Ecosystem shifts, glacial flooding and ‘rusting rivers’ among Alaska impacts in Arctic report

December 18, 2025 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its annual Arctic Report Card on Tuesday, which documents the way rising temperatures, diminished ice, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and vegetation shifts are transforming the region and affecting its people. The agency has released the report for 20 years as a way to track changes in the Arctic, according to Yereth Rosen with the Alaska Beacon.

“The Arctic continues to warm faster than the global average, with the 10 years that comprise the last decade marking the 10 warmest years on record,” Steve Thur, NOAA’s acting administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research and the agency’s acting chief scientist, said at a news conference Tuesday.

The report card is a peer-reviewed collaboration of more than 100 scientists from 13 countries, with numerous coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was officially released at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in New Orleans, where Thur and other officials held the news conference.

The report is the first under the second Trump administration, at a time when the federal government’s commitment to documenting Arctic climate change has diminished: The president has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and federal departments are cancelling climate change-related research and projects, as well as scrubbing climate information from public view.

Read the full article at Alaska News Source

Arctic Warming Is Turning Alaska’s Rivers Red With Toxic Runoff

December 17, 2025 — Record-setting temperatures and rainfall in the Arctic over the past year sped up the melting of permafrost and washed toxic minerals into more than 200 rivers across northern Alaska, threatening vital salmon runs, according to a report card issued by federal scientists.

The report, compiled by dozens of academic and government scientists and coordinated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, documented rapid environmental changes from Norway’s Svalbard Island to the Greenland ice sheet and the tundra of northern Canada and Alaska.

Between October 2024 and September 2025, the period from when the ground begins to freeze until the end of summer, surface air temperatures were the warmest on record dating back 125 years, the report found.

“The Arctic region has a powerful influence on Earth’s ecosystem as a whole,” said Steve Thur, NOAA’s assistant administrator for research and acting chief scientist.

This year’s 153-page Arctic report card is coming out despite a shift at the agency, including a focus on commercial aspects of the ocean, such as deep-sea mining. In April, the Trump administration proposed eliminating NOAA’s research arm, a move that would hobble early warning systems for natural disasters, science education and the study of the Arctic. The Trump administration fired 1,000 NOAA employees earlier this year, but has since tried to rehire 450 of them, mostly in its National Weather Service branch.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Ecosystem shifts, glacial flooding and ‘rusting rivers’ among Alaska impacts in Arctic report

December 17, 2025 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its annual Arctic Report Card on Tuesday, which documents the way rising temperatures, diminished ice, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and vegetation shifts are transforming the region and affecting its people. The agency has released the report for 20 years as a way to track changes in the Arctic.

“The Arctic continues to warm faster than the global average, with the 10 years that comprise the last decade marking the 10 warmest years on record,” Steve Thur, NOAA’s acting administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research and the agency’s acting chief scientist, said at a news conference Tuesday.

The report card is a peer-reviewed collaboration of more than 100 scientists from 13 countries, with numerous coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was officially released at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in New Orleans, where Thur and other officials held the news conference.

The report is the first under the second Trump administration, at a time when the federal government’s commitment to documenting Arctic climate change has diminished: The president has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and federal departments are cancelling climate change-related research and projects, as well as scrubbing climate information from public view.

Under directives from the Trump administration, NOAA no longer provides information that the National Snow and Ice Data Center once used to monitor sea ice and snow cover, for example. The Colorado-based center now relies on satellite information from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for its sea ice reports, and it has reduced its analysis.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon