Saving Seafood

  • Home
  • News
    • Alerts
    • Conservation & Environment
    • Council Actions
    • Economic Impact
    • Enforcement
    • International & Trade
    • Law
    • Management & Regulation
    • Regulations
    • Nutrition
    • Opinion
    • Other News
    • Safety
    • Science
    • State and Local
  • News by Region
    • New England
    • Mid-Atlantic
    • South Atlantic
    • Gulf of Mexico
    • Pacific
    • North Pacific
    • Western Pacific
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Fishing Terms Glossary

New Seasonal Forecast Predicts Cooler Waters in Northeast

June 4, 2025 — Deep waters in the Gulf of Maine and the Mid-Atlantic Bight shelfbreak region are expected to remain cooler than in recent years. This prediction, a product of NOAA’s Changing Ecosystems and Fisheries Initiative, is from the first experimental seasonal ocean outlook released by NOAA scientists in April. It is a shift from previous patterns: From 2004 to 2013, sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Maine warmed faster than anywhere else in the world.

Fisheries Data Supports Forecast

Conditions at the bottom of the ocean along much of the Northeast U.S. coast have been colder than normal in the first few months of 2025. Data collected in March 2025 by several surveys and the eMOLT program, a partnership between commercial fishermen and NOAA, showed:

  • Bottom temperatures across much of the Gulf of Maine that were 0.5–2.0 °C (0.9–3.6 °F) below normal for March, though a few locations reported slightly warmer than normal conditions
  • Cooler than normal conditions all along the edge of Georges Bank and deep along the Mid-Atlantic Bight shelf break and slope
  • Patches of near to slightly above normal temperatures inshore around Long Island

The first experimental outlook was produced by an advanced integration of NOAA Research’s global seasonal forecast model with a newly developed high-resolution numerical ocean model. The outlook predicts that many of these patterns of above and below normal bottom temperatures will persist into the summer:

  • Continued cold is predicted in the deep Gulf of Maine, while some shallow nearshore regions may see moderately above normal temperatures
  • Colder than normal conditions are also forecast to persist deep along the Mid-Atlantic Bight shelf break and slope, but warmer than normal conditions are predicted to develop in much of the shallower Mid-Atlantic Bight
  • Near the surface, moderately warmer than normal conditions (about 1 °C or 2 °F above average) are predicted throughout most of the region

Since releasing the outlook, NOAA scientists have continued monitoring conditions in the Northeast. Consistent with the forecast and data collected in March and April 2025, they are seeing cooler than normal bottom temperatures.

Are these changes part of a longer term shift?

The recent persistence of cooler than usual conditions in the Gulf of Maine is a marked departure from the last two decades. From 2004 to 2013, the Gulf of Maine sea surface temperature warmed faster than virtually anywhere else in the world. Strong marine heatwaves, or extended periods of substantially warmer than normal conditions, were observed in 2012 and 2016. This abrupt warming had impacts on a number of important fisheries, including cod and lobster.

NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory conducted experimental model predictions of the next 10 years in 2023. They suggest that the warming will pause over the next decade, with the temperature trend at the surface remaining flat or slightly cooling. In the model, this pause in the warming trend is associated with slow variability in the ocean and atmosphere that takes place over several years. This will ultimately result in a temporary southward displacement of the warm Gulf Stream current, which allows colder water into the Northeast U.S. region.

The cool water observed this winter and spring, its predicted continuation at depth this summer, and several cool pulses observed in 2024 point to this prediction being accurate so far. However, several additional years of data will be needed to confirm whether the warming trend has paused as predicted.

These ocean outlooks are based on advanced numerical models developed by NOAA Research. The Seamless System for Prediction and Earth System Research (SPEAR) model was developed at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. It predicts how the ocean, atmosphere, land, and sea ice across the planet will evolve over the next 1 to 10 years. Through a process known as downscaling, predictions from the SPEAR global model are then fed into a much higher resolution regional model, built with NOAA’s Modular Ocean Model version 6 (MOM6). This high-resolution model also simulates coastal tides, plankton, and ocean chemistry.

Preparing for Changing Ecosystems and Fisheries

We will update the seasonal outlook for the U.S. East Coast—which includes the Caribbean and the Gulf of America (formerly the Gulf of Mexico)—every 3 months. We will also continue to regularly update our 10-year forecasts. Combined, these forecasts will provide actionable information about potential near-future ocean conditions. Coastal communities, industries, and resource managers can use this information to reduce the impacts of ocean changes.

Scientists at NOAA Fisheries are working closely with NOAA Research and university partners to understand how these predictions can be best incorporated into marine resource management. Changes such as the cooling of deep bottom waters are expected to be particularly impactful for groundfish species, such as cod and haddock, which live on or near the deep sea floor.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

How Tearing Down Small Dams Is Helping Restore Northeast Rivers

February 4, 2025 — The glass eels, 3 inches long with skin so translucent it reveals the beating of their tiny hearts, writhe with unexpected strength in the palm of a hand. For a year they have ridden the tides from their hatching site, in the Sargasso Sea, to the mouth of upstate New York’s Saw Kill Creek, a narrow tributary of the Hudson River. That’s where a fyke net set out by biologists, counting migratory American eels as they seek clear and flowing creeks in which to mature, captures them.

Although not considered endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, American eels have for decades been tallied at historically low numbers throughout the Northeastern United States, the most heavily dammed region in the nation. Fishing regulators consider their stocks depleted. But they’re not the only species in trouble here. Alewife and blueback herring, shad, shortnose and Atlantic sturgeon, and Atlantic salmon are all on the decline in Northeastern river systems. In response, a range of government agencies, private landowners, and environmental groups have been collaborating to restore these populations — by removing the dams that block their passage.

Although dam removals have been happening since 1912, the vast majority have occurred since the mid-2010s, and they have picked up steam since the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provided funding for such projects. To date, 806 Northeastern dams have come down, with hundreds more in the pipeline. Across the country, 2023 was a watershed year, with a total of 80 dam removals. Says Andrew Fisk, Northeast regional director of the nonprofit American Rivers, “The increasing intensity and frequency of storm events, and the dramatically reduced sizes of our migratory fish populations, are accelerating our efforts.”

Read the full article at Yale Environment 360

Early projections suggest Northeast US may get lower scallop quota in 2025

October 9, 2024 — The latest scientific surveys of scallop fishing areas in the Northeast U.S. show biomass decreased from 2023 to 2024 – which will likely result in a lower total allowable catch in 2025.

The scallop fishery in the Northeast U.S. is one of the most valuable fisheries in the country and has been grappling with lower quotas since a massive 2019 season saw the fishery land over 60 million pounds. That season was largely thanks to a massive recruitment event that occurred in the 2012 to 2013 scallop class, but now, those scallops have either been fished or aged out of the fishery.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Blade collapse, New York launch and New Jersey research show uneven progress of offshore wind

July 18, 2024 — Three events Wednesday highlighted the uneven progress of the offshore wind industry in the Northeast, including the start of a major project in New York, research aimed at preventing environmental damage in New Jersey, and a temporary shutdown of a wind farm in Massachusetts after a broken turbine blade washed ashore on a famous beach.

The federal government ordered a wind farm operator off the coast of Nantucket in Massachusetts to suspend operations while cleanup continues after a wind turbine blade fell into the water, broke apart, and washed up on beaches at the popular vacation spot.

Vineyard Wind said Wednesday that it has removed 17 cubic yards of debris, enough to fill more than six truckloads, along with several larger pieces that washed ashore. The debris was mostly non-toxic fiberglass fragments ranging in size from small pieces to larger sections, typically green or white.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

Ørsted agrees to acquire Eversource’s 50% share of Sunrise Wind project

January 30, 2024 — Danish company Ørsted has agreed to acquire utility company Eversource Energy’s 50% stake in a 924-megawatt offshore wind farm in New York, Sunrise Wind.

Eversource, based in Hartford and Boston, previously announced that it would divest its 50% ownership stake in three offshore wind projects in New York and Connecticut, including Sunrise Wind.

As a result, Eversource will take a 2023 fourth-quarter charge of up to $1.6 billion.

Read the full article at Hartford Business 

Governors warn Biden offshore wind projects ‘increasingly at risk of failing

September 19, 2023 — Governors of six Northeast states are asking the Biden administration to boost federal tax credits for offshore wind developers, give their states a share of revenue from offshore energy leases and hasten permitting for the projects.

In a Sept. 13 letter, the governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Maryland urgently called for more federal support for their states’ wind power agreements with developers. Echoing statements from Ørsted and other wind companies seeking to revise agreements, the governors wrote that “inflationary pressures, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the lingering supply chain disruptions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic have created extraordinary economic challenges that threaten to reverse these offshore wind gains.”

“Instead of continued price declines, offshore wind faces cost increases in orders of magnitude that threaten States’ ability to make purchasing decisions,” the letter states. “These pressures are affecting not only procurements of new offshore wind but, critically, previously procured projects already in the pipeline.

“Absent intervention, these near-term projects are increasingly at risk of failing. Without federal action, offshore wind deployment in the U.S. is at serious risk of stalling because States’ ratepayers may be unable to absorb these significant new costs alone.”

Read the full article at WorkBoat

Staying Alive

June 13, 2023 — Thirty years on, fishermen call for a re-evaluation of catch share programs that give foreign investors and non-participants a share of the catch.

Individual Transferable Quotas are far from a new idea in fisheries.

The International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries attempted to manage fisheries in the Northwest Atlantic from 1949 to 1979. The organization started discussing quota management in the 1960s and introduced national fishing quotas in the early 1970s. ICNAF sought to make these national quotas transferable in the late 1970s, but with Canada, the United States, and other North Atlantic Rim countries establishing what were then called Fisheries Conservation Zones extending 200 miles from their coasts, ICNAF was disbanded.

While countries such as Canada and Iceland aggressively pursued policies of quota management, including Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), the United States saw only three fisheries –Alaska halibut, Atlantic surf clam, and southern Atlantic wreckfish – adopt quota management before declaring a moratorium on the use of a tool that most saw as privatization of a public resource.

In 2000, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe failed in her efforts to extend the moratorium. Under pressure from Jane Lubchenco, who headed to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries under President Obama, groundfish fishermen in New England – the last bastion of defiance against what many fishermen saw as the  privatization of fishing rights – agreed to the start of a catch share program in 2011.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: Maine lobster fishery withdraws from Marine Stewardship Council recertification process

February 6, 2023 — The Gulf of Maine lobster fishery has temporarily withdrawn its effort to pursue recertification under the Marine Stewardship Council sustainability standard.

The Maine Certified Sustainable Lobster Association (MCSLA), an industry group that has served as the fishery’s client group for the MSC certification process since it was first certified in 2016, decided not to continue to seek recertification, after it lost its certificate in November 2022.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: The check is (almost) in the mail

February 6, 2023 — Active lobstermen are being advised to open mail from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission in the coming months, because the envelopes that arrive just might contain a check for up to $3,500.

Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher told members of the Lobster Advisory Council at their January 18 meeting that the checks—meant to partially offset the expense of gear modifications required by 2021 North Atlantic right whale protections—will be issued by ASMFC and should arrive this spring.

“These are checks that will be distributed to a lot of harvesters,” Keliher said. “The Commission will be writing the checks, so make sure you don’t see the envelope and throw it away.”

In an email clarifying the timing, DMR spokesman Jeff Nicholas wrote, “We cannot predict the timing for that, but we will keep license holders informed as the approval process is initiated.”

The money comes from a $14 million appropriation approved by Congress last year—prior to the December passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, usually referred to as the Omnibus spending bill. The December bill delayed new protection rules for the endangered whales for six years and includes $55 million for research and development of new technologies for lobstering and for monitoring the whales.

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

NMFS, Massachusetts order gear removal for right whales on the move

February 3, 2023 — An unusual winter concentration of endangered North Atlantic right whales in Cape Cod Bay prompted Massachusetts state officials and the National Marine Fisheries Service to order a three-month removal of trap and pot fishing gear in the region through April 30.

The emergency rule announced NMFS this week covers the Massachusetts Restricted Area Wedge where the gear closure is intended to reduce the risk of gear entanglement “when large numbers of whales are exiting Cape Cod Bay at the same time and place where fishermen are either fishing or may be staging their trap/pot fishing gear in preparation for the May 1 opening of federal waters in the Massachusetts Restricted Area,” according to the agency.

NMFS last imposed an similar emergency rule for the Massachusetts wedge area in April 2022. The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries requested the NMFS action, as the state imposed its own state-waters seasonal restrictions effective Feb. 1.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »

Recent Headlines

  • ALASKA: Alaska lawmakers introduce bill to ban metals mining in Bristol Bay watershed
  • NORTH CAROLINA: Dewey Hemilright advocates for US commercial fishing fleet
  • A data-driven model to help avoid ecosystem collapse
  • Trump reverses course on salmon restoration in the Pacific Northwest
  • Researchers make alarming discovery after analyzing stomach of deep-sea fish that washed ashore on US coast: ‘They are not picky eaters’
  • Keeping a labor force in the pipeline
  • Trump administration reverses aquaculture sector’s brief exemption from ICE raids
  • CALIFORNIA: California to close final sections of commercial Dungeness crab fishery

Most Popular Topics

Alaska Aquaculture ASMFC Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission BOEM California China Climate change Coronavirus COVID-19 Donald Trump groundfish Gulf of Maine Gulf of Mexico Hawaii Illegal fishing IUU fishing Lobster Maine Massachusetts Mid-Atlantic National Marine Fisheries Service National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NEFMC New Bedford New England New England Fishery Management Council New Jersey New York NMFS NOAA NOAA Fisheries North Atlantic right whales North Carolina North Pacific offshore energy Offshore wind Pacific right whales Salmon South Atlantic Western Pacific Whales wind energy Wind Farms

Daily Updates & Alerts

Enter your email address to receive daily updates and alerts:
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Tweets by @savingseafood

Copyright © 2025 Saving Seafood · WordPress Web Design by Jessee Productions