Saving Seafood

Endangered fin whale and calf sighting is a “rare occurrence,” New England Aquarium scientist says

August 7, 2025 — New England Aquarium researchers recently documented what they say was a rare sighting of an endangered fin whale and its calf.

Scientists on a July 24 aerial survey flew over the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, about 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod. They observed more than 1,000 marine animals, including seven fin whales, one endangered sperm whale, one humpback whale, two minke whales and more than 900 dolphins.

“Seeing an endangered fin whale and its calf is a rare occurrence,” assistant research scientist Kate Laemmle said in a statement Wednesday.

Read the full article at CBS News

Trump to reopen Northeast Canyons to commercial fishing

May 12, 2025 — The Trump administration has moved to roll back additional federal fishing restrictions, this time reopening the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing.

President Trump signed a proclamation on May 9 restoring access to nearly 5,000 square miles of federally protected waters southeast of Cape Cod, a move praised by regional industry groups and criticized by conservation scientists.

Originally designated as a national monument in 2016 under President Obama, the Northeast Canyons area was intended to protect deep-sea corals, whales, sea turtles, and other sensitive marine species. It was reopened to fishing during Trump’s first term in 2020, but the decision was reversed under President Biden in 2021.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Trump reinstating commercial fishing in northeast marine monument

May 12, 2025 — President Trump is reinstating commercial fishing in a national marine monument after the practice was blocked by his Democratic predecessors.

Trump is expected to issue a proclamation Friday reinstating commercial fishing access in all 4,913 square miles of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which is located off the coast of Massachusetts.

The proclamation was first reported by the NH Journal.

The national monument was established by former President Obama to protect deep-sea canyons with unique ecosystems. The administration said at the time that these ecosystems are significantly impacted by climate change.

Read the full article at The Hill

Trump to allow commercial fishing in New England marine monument

May 9, 2025 — President Donald Trump on Friday will sign a proclamation restoring commercial fishing access to a marine national monument off New England, according to a White House official.

The move is aligned with the Trump administration’s efforts to cut regulations it believes are burdensome to businesses and economic activity.

The proclamation will reopen the nearly 5,000-square-mile (13,000-square-kilometer) Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which was designated by former President Barack Obama in 2016 to protect species including deep-sea corals, sea turtles and whales.

Trump opened the monument to fishing during his first term in 2020, but that was reversed by former President Joe Biden in 2021.

The decision supports fishing communities, economic activity and jobs, the White House official said.

Read the full story from Reuters

Using Environmental DNA to Understand Biodiversity in a Marine National Monument

August 16, 2024 — When I tell my friends that I’m going to collect environmental DNA samples in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, their first question is always: Where is that?

Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National is a highly protected area located about 130 miles east-southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It is similar in size to Connecticut. President Obama designated this area as the first marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean in 2016.

NOAA shares management responsibilities with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for activities and species within the monument. It is a relatively undisturbed environment, which could be called a true ocean wilderness. The chief scientist of this research expedition, Peter Auster, is a research professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut and a senior research scientist at Mystic Aquarium. When Peter asked me if I’d be interested in sailing together to collect environmental DNA samples from the monument, I answered with an enthusiastic yes.

An interdisciplinary research group mustered aboard R/V Connecticut. Peter Auster and others scuba dove to deploy baited remote underwater video cameras to study apex predators. Meta Miner and Mael Glon from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted seabird surveys. Mary Beth Decker of Yale University used a specialized net to collect and identify gelatinous animals.

And of course, I collected seawater samples for eDNA metabarcoding analysis to study biodiversity in the monument, including fish and marine mammals.

Besides the fascinating habitat we studied, this expedition offered unique research opportunities for me.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

Biden pitches Atlantic coast ‘Grand Canyon’ as marine sanctuary

June 8, 2022 — The White House today endorsed designating the Atlantic coast’s largest undersea canyon as one of the nation’s next underwater parks, but stopped short of enacting immediate protections that could guard the “ecological hotspot” from commercial fishing, energy development or other threats.

The Biden administration announced it will begin the process for safeguarding the Hudson Canyon — which sits 100 miles off the coasts of New York and New Jersey and rivals the Grand Canyon in scale — in a series of actions to mark today’s World Oceans Day.

In addition to kicking off the designation of a new national marine sanctuary, the White House vowed to develop a “whole-of-government Ocean Climate Action Plan” on ocean-based climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

NOAA will oversee the designation process for the Hudson Canyon, which would become part of an existing group of 15 underwater parks that includes both freshwater and ocean sites.

But that process, which includes public comment, the drafting of environmental impact statements and management plans, and potential rulemaking, is not a swift one, with a final decision taking two to three years.

Bob Vanasse, executive director of industry group Saving Seafood, praised the decision to utilize the sanctuaries act rather than take executive action.

“I appreciate that they are using the Marine Sanctuaries Act to do this, which allows input from affected ocean users and will allow for actual science to be considered, which is exactly why we objected to and continue to object to the marine monument designation,” Vanasse said, referring to the ongoing legal battle over the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts site (E&E News PM, Oct. 8, 2021).

Last fall, Biden restored commercial fishing prohibitions to the Atlantic Ocean monument that former President Donald Trump had struck down in 2020.

Read the full story at E&E News

 

Biden named in North Atlantic commercial fishing ban lawsuit filed by fishermen

April 14, 2022 — Fishermen in Massachusetts and New Jersey are challenging a Biden administration proclamation in court.

The fishermen have filed a lawsuit, Fehily et al. v. Biden et al., in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey alleging the proclamation that bans commercial fishing in the North Atlantic Ocean, primarily the Georges Bank area, saying it harms their ability to earn a living.

“The creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument violated the core requirements of the Antiquities Act to limit protections to specific monuments,” Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Frank Garrison said in a news release. “Most fundamentally, the Act gives the president authority to create monuments on federally owned or controlled land. The ocean is not land. Presidential action that goes beyond laws passed by Congress undermines the democratic process and the Constitution’s separation of powers.”

Read the full story at The Center Square

US fishermen file another lawsuit challenging Northeast Seamounts monument

April 14, 2022 — Fishermen from the U.S. states of New Jersey and Massachusetts have once again filed a lawsuit challenging the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

The national monument was first established by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016, who created the nearly 5,000-square-mile monument in the Georges Bank area of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean via executive order. The monument effectively banned commercial fishing in the area, with only red crab and lobster fishermen allowed to use the area – with plans to phase out that fishing by 15 September, 2023.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Fishermen from Mass., N.J., sue federal government to block ban on fishing near Gulf of Maine

April 13, 2022 — Two fishermen, one from Massachusetts and one from New Jersey, filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a Biden administration ban on commercial fishing in the Georges Bank area of the North Atlantic Ocean.

David T. Malley of Massachusetts and Patrick Fehily of New Jersey are commercial fisherman who work near the Gulf of Maine, within the roughly 5,000 square miles that President Biden designated in October as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, according to court documents.

Malley, a fisherman for more than 50 years, and Fehily, a fisherman for more than a decade, name Biden, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland as defendants in the suit, filed in US District Court in New Jersey, according to court documents.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Gulf of Mexico Swordfish: Lingering covid effects, cheap imports depress market

December 22, 2021 — Low production, the ongoing covid-19 health and economic crisis, and a flood of product from Canada are depressing the U.S. commercial swordfish market in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic, according to some industry members.

“Production levels are the lowest they’ve been since the beginning of time,” lamented Scott Taylor, operator of Day Boat Seafood in Fort Pierce, Fla. “There have been no positive developments whatsoever. I have more boats sitting at the dock than I have fishing.”

Taylor cited a litany of hits to the fishery: Covid’s impacts on the restaurant industry which drives U.S. demand for swords; new U.S. government regulations, including gear restrictions and the possible closure by the Biden administration of New England’s fish-rich Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument; a deluge of cheaper product from Canada dumped in U.S. markets recently; rising fuel prices; and a lack of new blood entering the U.S. commercial fishing industry.

Taylor said the average boat price is about $4, which he calls “unsustainable.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman