Saving Seafood

Aerial Surveys: Monitoring Right Whales from Above

August 14, 2026 — This story is part two of a three-part series. Read about how we are listening for North Atlantic right whales with passive acoustics, monitoring them with aerial surveys, and using boats, drones, uncrewed surface vehicles and satellites to learn as much as we can about them and their habitat. In the Northeast, we work with many partners to track right whales, including mothers and calves, using advanced technology to help inform actions that reduce risks to the species.

Many North Atlantic right whales migrate thousands of miles to the Southeast and the Mid-Atlantic from mid-November to mid-April. Female right whales give birth in the shallow coastal waters of the Southeast during the winter months. The whales spend the rest of the year feeding in the plankton-rich waters off of the Northeast and Canada.

We take to the skies to monitor this journey. The Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s aerial survey team conducts right whale surveys aboard a NOAA Twin Otter Aircraft. The team has flown 325 hours monitoring whales since January 2026. In the spring, they monitored whales off of New England and the Mid-Atlantic. In June, they joined Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) as part of a Joint Aerial Survey Team, flying out of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. There, they flew 50 hours monitoring aggregations of right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

From Sound to Satellites: Reducing Risks to North Atlantic Right Whales with Advanced Technology

August 11, 2026 — This story is part 1 of a 3-part series. Read about how we are listening for North Atlantic right whales with passive acoustics, monitoring them with aerial surveys, and using boats, drones, uncrewed surface vehicles and satellites to learn as much as we can about them and their habitat. In the Northeast, we work with many partners to track right whales, including mothers and calves, using advanced technology to help inform actions that reduce risks to the species.

Endangered North Atlantic right whales had a busy winter! NOAA Fisheries and our partners saw 23 right whale mom and calf pairs during the right whale calving season in the Southeast. This is hopeful news for the species. With only 380 North Atlantic right whales remaining, including about 70 reproductively active females, each mother and calf is vital to the species’ recovery. Human impacts continue to threaten the survival of the species.

Reducing risk to these whales is a top priority as they spend the summer in their northern feeding grounds, and technology is helping us do it. With our partners, NOAA Fisheries is monitoring right whales using cutting-edge techniques like real-time passive acoustic monitoring and measuring calf growth rates with drones.

The data we collect inform management and conservation measures that reduce the risks whales face from human impacts, including vessel strikes and entanglements. Our continuous monitoring supports coexistence between marine industries and right whales.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Appeals Court Says Fishermen’s Claim in Lobster Defamation Suit Raises First Amendment Questions

August 5, 2026 — A federal appeals court signaled that it might not allow a lawsuit brought by fishing industry businesses and trade groups against a California aquarium to proceed because of the case’s potential impact on free speech.

The New England-based plaintiffs sued the Monterey Bay Aquarium for defamation after the aquarium’s Seafood Watch conservation program placed American and Canadian lobster on its do-not-eat “red list” in 2022. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether the lawsuit can go forward.

One of the appellate judges, Judge Seth Aframe, said during oral arguments on July 27 that it doesn’t strike him as a defamation claim and that he finds the case troubling “from a First Amendment perspective.”

“The more you broaden the class of people that fall within this, the more it feels like everybody can sue,” Aframe said.

Seafood Watch placed lobster on its list of seafood to avoid because of the threat posed to rare whales, such as the North Atlantic right whale, by potential entanglement in fishing gear.

The lobster fishing industry, based mostly in Maine, has pushed back, saying the claim inaccurately portrays it as a threat to whales and constitutes defamation that has caused economic harm. It claims that the whales face greater threats from other fishing industries, including the Canadian snow crab fishery.

Conservation groups have long made the case that lobster and crab fisheries are both dangerous to the whales, and government agencies have acknowledged that entanglement in fishing gear is a critical threat to the giant animals.

The industry is sticking to that claim despite the judges’ comments during oral arguments, Kevin Lipson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Wednesday.

“Monterey Bay Aquarium in their Seafood Watch report didn’t disclose any of the countervailing evidence. In fact, they hid that evidence,” Lipson said.

Read the full article at U.S. News

Maine lobster industry lawsuit against Monterey Bay Aquarium caught in wider First Amendment debate

August 3, 2026 — A lawsuit launched by the Maine lobster industry against the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation appeared before the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals on 27 July, and judges were reportedly concerned about its impact to First Amendment protections.

A coalition of Maine lobstermen including Bean Maine Lobster Inc., the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, Atwood Lobster LLC, and Bug Catcher Inc. sued the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation (MBAF) over its red listing of Maine-caught lobster. The listing was part of a complicated back-and-forth over the Maine lobster industry’s alleged impact on the North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered species.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MASSACHUSETTS: A challenging but ‘priceless’ life of a lobsterman

August 3, 2026 — A lot has changed since Tom O’Reilly threw his first lobster pot in the ocean more than four decades ago.

Back then he was using wooden traps which had to be laden with rocks so they would sink to the sea floor. Once the wood became waterlogged the rocks were no longer needed, but they were heavy even when empty. Each pot was hauled up one at a time using only muscle power, a slow and arduous task. And he worked year ‘round.

Now 65, O’Reilly – a big, affable man with short cropped white hair and piercing blue eyes – employs a “stern man,” currently 18-year-old Kyle Moyen, of Manomet. Wooden traps have been replaced by lighter, coated wire traps strung together in groups of 15, each separated from the others by 90 feet of rope. To get the traps up to the boat, Moyen uses a grappling hook to grab the rope just underneath each buoy and O’Reilly threads the rope onto a winch-like device mounted on the starboard rail. He calls it a hauler (brand name: Hydro Slave) and it does most the heavy lifting until each trap is brought alongside the boat where Moyen wrangles it onto the rail. As for lobster fishing year ‘round, that, to O’Reilly’s chagrin, has been reduced by state regulation to help save the endangered North Atlantic right whale, of which fewer than 400 remain.

When I moved to Plymouth in late 2024, I was surprised the following spring to see so many lobster buoys bobbing in Plymouth waters. It was widely reported that even Maine’s coastal waters were becoming too warm to sustain the lobster population, forcing them north into Canadian waters.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the waters of Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine, of which Cape Cod Bay is a part, are warming faster than most global marine environments. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute concludes climate change has caused average summertime water temperatures in the Bay to warm by more than 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1970s. That may not sound like a lot, but even a one-degree average rise can mean the difference between thriving and dying for some species. Local oystermen cite warming waters for a drastic reduction in the local mussel population, for example.

O’Reilly doesn’t dispute the data, but says over the past ten years the temperature has been stable.

“People may disagree with me on this,” O’Reilly says, “but I’ve monitored the water temperature every day for the past ten years, and I don’t see it rising.”

He points to one of the monitors on his boat, the 36-foot Karen M, built in Maine in 1991 and named for O’Reilly’s wife. The monitor shows the water temperature is 65 degrees. “Normally, this time of year, it should be about 70,” he says, “and the lobster population is stable.”

Read the full article at the Plymouth Independent 

MAINE: Maine lobstermen push to expand restricted fishing zone

July 28, 2026 — Small-scale lobstermen fishing out of Jonesport, Beals and Jonesboro are backing a proposal to expand a protected fishing zone in Englishman Bay, aiming to keep buoyed gear clear of long commercial trawls.

The Lobster Zone A Council voted unanimously last week to advance the plan, which would push the boundary of a restricted area 3 miles farther out to federal waters on its western edge, while leaving the eastern border unchanged, The Maine Monitor reported. Under current rules established in a 2011 agreement, the zone limits fishermen to buoyed lines carrying up to four traps; the new proposal would allow up to five traps per line inside the expanded area.

The change would also bar vessels running heavier gear — trawls of 10 to 20 traps anchored with large balloons — from fishing the expanded western zone.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NOAA Fisheries Announces a Negative 90-day Finding on A Petition Request to Revise the Critical Habitat Designation for the North Atlantic Right Whale

July 21, 2026 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries received a petition from Save Long Beach Island, Inc. to revise the critical habitat designation for North Atlantic right whales under the Endangered Species Act. The petition requests a revision to the current critical habitat designation to include a migratory habitat in waters between Maine and Georgia.

NOAA Fisheries reviewed the petition, references provided by the petition, and information readily available in our files, and found that the petition does not present substantial scientific information indicating a revision to North Atlantic right whale critical habitat may be warranted. Therefore, a negative 90-day finding was made.

Read the notice as filed in the Federal Register today.

Questions?

Industry: Jean Higgins, Protected Resources, 978-281-9345

Media: Contact GARFO Public Affairs

New regulations to protect right whales may be paused until 2035

July 20, 2026 — A bill cosponsored by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District that would further delay new protections for North American right whales has advanced out of Committee.

Golden has cited government layoffs and other slowdowns as reasons for extending a moratorium on new regulations from 2028 to 2035.

Golden said in remarks to the House Natural Resources Committee that the extended moratorium would provide time to collect more data, ensuring that Maine fisheries aren’t unfairly burdened. The Maine Department of Marine Resources and the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association wrote letters of support for the legislation.

“We need more time to make sure that any new measures we ask lobstermen to take will strike a very careful balance between protecting marine life and protecting the livelihoods of fishermen themselves,” Golden said at the committee hearing.

But Gib Brogan of ocean protection nonprofit Oceana said the science is clear.

“All of the available evidence shows that the protections that are in place right now are not enough to support the recovery of North Atlantic right whales.”

Read the full article at Maine Public

US lawmakers advance bill reauthorizing NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office

July 17, 2026 — U.S. representatives on the House Committee on Natural Resources voted to advance a bill reauthorizing NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office on 15 July.

“The House just took a key step toward investment in the science, restoration, and education that’s essential to the Chesapeake Bay’s recovery,” Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) Senior Policy Director Keisha Sedlacek said in a statement. “We’re grateful to House leaders for advancing the WATERS Act and look forward to action in the Senate on the companion bill.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Golden-sponsored bill to extend pause on new lobster fishing rules

July 16, 2026 — The Maine lobster industry may be getting an extended reprieve on new regulations aimed at protecting North Atlantic right whales.

A bill, the Northeast Lobstermen Protection Act, co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), will extend a moratorium on those regulations for Maine lobster fishermen until 2035. Yesterday, the bill passed the House Natural Resources Committee by a vote of 22-13.

In remarks to the committee, Golden noted that many communities in Maine rely on the lobster industry, and are being threatened by the new regulations.

Read the full article at Spectrum News