March 12, 2025 — Perusing the Federal Register — an old habit from my wire service days — I see that a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, will hold a four-day meeting to “consider actions affecting the Gulf of Mexico fisheries in the exclusive economic zone in early April.”
MASSACHUSETTS: Trump firings hit NOAA scientists, analysts on South Coast
March 11, 2025 — Editor’s note: The Washington bureaucracy referred to in this article was likely an automatic review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) which is a statutory part of the Office of Management and Budget within the Executive Office of the President. That review was triggered automatically due to the size of the quota reduction agreed to by the New England Fishery Management Council with the support of the limited access Atlantic scallop fishery in order to maintain the health and sustainability of the fishery. That review requirement was addressed in Washington on Monday, and the process is now back on track, and proceeding as it does in most years, with the next step being publication in the Federal Register. Unless there is a Government shutdown, the process should be complete by early to mid-April, which although past the April 1 target, is no more unusual that most years.
Federal cuts ordered by the Trump administration reached Massachusetts in late February, when the NOAA Fisheries’ workforce from Maine to North Carolina was slashed.
Hundreds more cuts may happen this week, when department heads must meet a deadline to submit proposals for “large-scale” reductions in force at their respective agencies to not only terminate people, but eliminate their positions altogether.
This means more scientists and analysts who protect and manage the country’s commercial fisheries may soon lose their jobs. Their terminations have raised concerns about the future of the fishing industry, the science that underlies its management, and the people who rely on it for work and for food. That’s especially true in New Bedford, the country’s highest-value fishing port, where the new scallop season is about to start.
NOAA Fisheries terminations: what we know
NOAA Fisheries is the federal steward of the oceans and their resources, including endangered marine mammals. With science as its foundation and guide, it manages more than 400 fish stocks.
NOAA Fisheries’ parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which hosts the critically important National Weather Service, has seen about 1,300 terminations already, per the New York Times. Another 10% could be cut in this next round, one source told The Light.
The agency and the Office of Personnel Management did not answer questions from The Light on how many people were terminated in Massachusetts (or nationally) in February, and what their positions were.
During a conference hosted by U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Janet Coit, the assistant administrator at NOAA Fisheries who resigned in January, said at least 20 employees in NOAA Fisheries’ Rhode Island and Woods Hole offices were terminated.
She called the terminations of “some of the best and the brightest” indiscriminate and not strategic, saying the Trump administration used a loophole to fire long-term employees with institutional knowledge, who were technically probationary because they had received a promotion or assumed a new position.
Some probationary members who were terminated had worked for the agency for many years as contract workers, and had only recently been onboarded as federal employees.
Terminations included the head of NOAA’s marine carbon dioxide removal office and the director of NOAA’s ocean acidification program, both of which research issues critical to the fishing industry and its future viability.
The Trump administration’s cuts also have extended to advisory committees, including one established in 1971: the Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee. It was staffed by representatives from universities, the commercial fishing industry, environmental nonprofits and seafood companies.
Sarah Schumann, a commercial fisherman in Rhode Island who was serving her third year as a committee member, said it was an excellent venue for fishermen to have their interests and concerns heard by the higher levels of government on how fisheries can be better managed.
“We’ve been robbed of a voice,” she said. “It felt like a real place to collaboratively, honestly evaluate the larger scale trajectory of fisheries management in the U.S. And now that that’s gone.”
DOGE Considering Canceling some NOAA Building Leases
March 11, 2025 — Late last month, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, mandated that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration get rid of 31 of its rental offices and facilities, including three in New England, The Public’s Radio has learned.
Former NOAA scientists say they especially fear the ramifications of losing a building on the list in East Falmouth, Mass., which has long housed the entire Northeast Coast’s fisheries observer program and is tasked with tracking the number and habits of fish from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to the Gulf of Maine, and helping ensure fishers are not catching too many fish or illegal species.
Several workers from that program were already terminated in mass firings on Feb. 27, and scientists say losing the East Falmouth building would cause further disruptions, potentially resulting in massive declines in fish populations in the region and declines in enforcement of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
ALASKA: Science supporting Alaska seafood industry threatened by federal firings, biologists and fishermen say
March 11, 2025 — Rebecca Howard is a marine biologist who spent six years in graduate school — largely funded by federal scholarship dollars — to earn a doctorate at Oregon State University. Last April, she was hired by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries branch to join in annual surveys off Alaska that gather data vital to the management of the nation’s biggest seafood harvests.
This year, the Seattle-based Howard was scheduled to spend three weeks aboard a chartered fishing boat sampling Gulf of Alaska marine life, and another three weeks on a Bering Sea survey. But on Feb. 27, more than 10 months into a yearlong probation, she received an email from a NOAA vice admiral informing her that she was being terminated. Her ability, knowledge “and/or skills” no longer fit the agency’s needs.
“This is what I wanted to do. I wanted to stay at this job,” Howard said in an interview from Seattle, where she worked at the main branch of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “It was a huge disappointment.”
Court says NOAA must explain lack of protective measures for corals
March 10, 2025 — A federal judge has ordered NOAA to explain why it declined to adopt regulations to protect 20 coral species designated in 2014 as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
In a 42-page decision, Judge Micah W.J. Smith of the District Court of Hawaii said NOAA Fisheries, also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service, failed to provide adequate explanation for denying a 2020 petition from the Center for Biological Diversity to impose protective measures for the species that live Florida, the Caribbean, and the Indo-Pacific region and are threatened by the impacts of climate change.
“Even under [a] highly deferential standard of review, two facets of NMFS’ denial letter fall short,” Smith wrote. “NMFS offered no reasoned explanation for declining to protect the threatened coral species from their gravest threat, climate change. And for one set of the threatened species, the Caribbean corals, NMFS offered no reasoned explanation for declining to adopt regulations addressing localized threats.”
El Niño Yields to Upwelling in the California Current, Renewing Productivity of West Coast Ecosystem
March 10, 2025 — According to the NOAA California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment’s annual report, the California Current Ecosystem pulled out of a strong El Niño pattern in 2024. That El Niño delayed the onset of the annual spring upwelling of nutrient-laden water that, was nevertheless strong enough to fuel the rich West Coast ecosystem and improv environmental conditions for salmon.
NOAA Fisheries scientists presented the report to the Pacific Fishery Management Council to inform upcoming decisions on fishing seasons. The report provides a snapshot of ocean conditions, fish population abundance and habitat, and fisheries landings and fishing communities’ conditions. It gives short-term forecasts and longer term projections of how conditions across the ecosystem may evolve in 2025 and beyond.
Report Highlights
- Upwelling resumed even more strongly and consistently than normal, supplying a greater influx of nutrient-rich waters that improved forage conditions for many species
- Productive waters supported abundant forage speciessuch as anchovy and krill and strong production of young hake and juvenile rockfish that could contribute to commercial fisheries in future years
- Improved freshwater streamflows should support survival of juvenile salmon migrating downstream in California to the ocean
- California sea lions found enough prey amid the El Niño warming, while experiencing harmful algal blooms that led to premature birth of pups and strandings along the coast
“Each year we learn more about how this marine ecosystem functions and what we should be watching to anticipate change,” said Andrew Leising, a research oceanographer at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center who coauthored the new report. “We’re getting better at forecasting what is coming at us, at the same time we see some new twists.”
NOAA-Funded Research Highlights Economic Effects of Oyster Reef Restoration
March 8, 2025 — Researchers at Morgan State University’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory quantified how restored oyster reefs in the NOAA Middle Peninsula Habitat Focus Area in Virginia would affect the local economy. They found that oyster reef restoration in the York and Piankatank rivers has a meaningful effect on the area’s economy. Results of their work, which was funded through the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Fisheries Research Program, were published in Ecological Modelling.
Oyster reefs provide habitat and food for commercially important species, including blue crabs. More healthy reef habitat means more blue crabs are available for harvest and for your dinner table. That provides financial benefits to watermen and supporting industries along the way.
In recent years, the York and Piankatank rivers have been the site of large-scale oyster reef restoration projects. That effort has led to 204 acres of restored oyster reefs in the York River and 497 acres in the Piankatank River. These projects have been spearheaded by members of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Virginia Oyster Restoration Workgroup, including:
- NOAA
- Virginia Marine Resources Commission
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
- The Nature Conservancy
These reefs support commercial and recreational fishing. But what would happen if there were more—or fewer—oyster reefs in the river? What other changes might affect the blue crab fishery?
‘I’m Heartbroken’: California Scientists Left Adrift by Mass Federal Layoffs at NOAA
March 6, 2025 — Many in California’s science community are reeling after last week’s mass firings within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration upended workers’ lives and raised dire concerns for the climate agency’s work going forward.
At least seven people, including National Weather Service employees and staff at the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries, lost their jobs along the Central Coast.
Their stories are similar and heart-wrenching. The early-career federal workers are planning marriages, recently signed mortgages and were saving to buy their first homes. But last Thursday, they got an email saying they were “not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge, and/or skills do not fit the agency’s current needs” — many of them before their supervisors even knew.
Local Marine Research Takes a Hit, Following Federal Firing Edict
March 6, 2025 — The mass firing of probationary employees at federal agencies and other cuts by the Trump administration reached the epicenter of marine research for the Cape and Islands last week, leaving Vineyarders wondering about the potential ripple effects in the coming years.
Several scientists in Woods Hole were terminated Feb. 27, part of the Elon Musk-led layoffs by his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to former employees and other scientific leaders in the seaside community.
The firings, expected budget cuts and disbanding of diversity initiatives, both in Woods Hole and beyond, have cast a pall of fear and anger over the scientific community.
“The body of knowledge and expertise that these agencies hold, and the staff within them, is immense, whether it’s their laboratory that we are able to access or their field expertise,” said Emily Reddington, the executive director of the Great Pond Foundation here on the Island. “We couldn’t do our work to help protect the ponds without them.”
MAINE: NOAA cuts raise concerns among fishermen
March 5, 2025 — Over 2,000 people from across New England convened at the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum over the weekend to talk all things fish.
But this year, between gear expos, panels, and buddies catching up, there was an undercurrent of uncertainty after news broke of hundreds of NOAA layoffs in the weather and fish management divisions.
At a panel on managing fish in Gulf of Maine waters, one NOAA speaker was absent, and the other declined to answer questions about how changes at the federal agency might impact local fishing.
Eric Hesse fishes for tuna far off the coast of Cape Cod. He drove up for a panel on the Gulf of Maine Bottom Longline Survey, which he participates in.
“We’re worried about the impact of it. We engage with NOAA on various levels, whether it’s reporting, observer coverage,” he said. “All these things are part of our daily life, on the water, and to suddenly lose part of that could really disrupt our fisheries.”
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