Saving Seafood

Fishing Vessel Joins Trained Team to Free Injured Humpback Whale 20 Miles off Oregon Coast

August 4, 2026 — An Oregon team joined by experts from Washington and a local fisherman freed a severely entangled humpback whale about 20 miles off the Oregon Coast on July 26. While the team removed all of the gear from the whale, the entanglement left the young whale’s jaw permanently open, leaving it unable to feed and unlikely to survive.

Oregon State University research assistant Craig Hayslip spotted the whale from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter surveying the coast for whales and fishing gear three days earlier. He reported the whale anchored by heavy fishing gear to NOAA’s West Coast Entanglement Hotline, which activates trained responders across the region.

Responders asked local fisherman Poggy Lapham to join the effort and help lift the gear with the hydraulic winch on his boat, F/V Michele Ann. That gave responders access to free the whale from the gear. An online photo catalog identified the whale as a young humpback previously sighted in British Columbia in 2024.

The fishing vessel recovered a tangle of more than 3,000 feet of line, five sablefish pots, and individual commercial Dungeness crab traps from Oregon and Washington. Responders and the fishermen worked together to analyze the gear and evaluate the entanglement. The condition of the gear indicated that it could be derelict or lost gear. NOAA Fisheries is following up with gear owners for more details.

Lapham said the entanglement should be a wake-up call for the fishing industry to ask, “How can we better incentivize gear retrieval and tracking of lost gear to reduce this risk?”

“This is truly a heartbreaker because of the whale’s injuries, but we will learn so much from this case that can help us prevent future entanglements,” said Lauren Saez, who helped coordinate the response for NOAA Fisheries’ West Coast Region. “We disentangled the whale safely, got all the gear back, and had great collaboration with the fishing industry. Additionally, we got whale DNA samples from the gear to help identify which population it belongs to. All this information is crucial to understand what happened and what we can do to help prevent future entanglements.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

OREGON: Oregon’s Newest Food Trail Highlights Local Seafood and the People Who Catch It

July 29, 2026 — From dock to plate, the Oregon Coast Seafood Trail puts the people behind the catch at the center of every meal. While much of the seafood consumed in Oregon comes from outside the country, Oregon’s newest trail highlights where you can enjoy Oregon-landed seafood that directly supports local fisheries. The trail guides travelers to vetted eateries, restaurants, seafood markets, food carts and dockside retailers that prioritize local seafood.

Central to the trail is the idea of “Oregon-landed” seafood, meaning the catch was delivered to a port in Oregon. Oregon’s fisheries are among the most sustainably managed in the world, with species like pink shrimp, albacore tuna, groundfish and Dungeness crab certified for responsible harvest. Additional local species — including Pacific halibut, salmon, oysters, clams and sea vegetables — round out the diversity of Oregon’s coastal waters and ensure every meal reflects the region’s bounty.

Each stop along the trail offers a window into the working waterfronts that sustain coastal communities. A dynamic map helps travelers sort stops by region, business type, seasonal events and more. The trail allows visitors to time their trip with the commercial crab season, albacore tuna runs or opportunities to buy directly from the docks. Along the way, visitors can explore coastal eateries, seafood markets and other businesses where transparency, sustainability and local sourcing are part of the story.

Read the full article at South Sound

OREGON: Reconnecting Rivers Boosts Oregon Coast Coho Recovery

June 5, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries supports one of the most ambitious salmon restoration projects on Oregon’s coast: the Salmon SuperHwy. This partnership of more than a dozen organizations works across the Tillamook, Nestucca, and Sand Lake watersheds. It works to restore fish passage at dozens of stream barriers, such as failing road culverts and tide gates. When complete, salmon and steelhead will be able to access 180 miles of habitat that had been blocked for decades.

The benefits of the Salmon SuperHwy project and other coastal restoration work are not just theoretical. Threatened Oregon Coast coho salmon have experienced a dramatic rebound in recent years. NOAA Fisheries Oregon Coast Branch Supervisor Lance Kruzic believes that restoring rivers and streams has helped more coho survive their juvenile life stage and return as adults to spawn.

“Over the last 30 years, substantial funding has been invested in restoring freshwater habitat, and coho have been benefiting,” said Kruzic. “For example, the Tillamook area—which was once one of the toughest places for coho to reach the habitat they needed—is now a bright spot for coho recovery. There’s been a total flip.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries