Oregon Archives - Saving Seafood

OREGON: Lawmakers urge continued support for West Coast fishermen, Oregon’s seafood industry

September 22, 2026 — Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley led a bipartisan group of Oregon and Washington lawmakers in a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins that calls on the USDA to deliver critical federal support to West Coast fishermen and seafood harvesters, processors, and distributors by purchasing Pacific Hake (whiting) fillets under its Section 32 purchase program.

“Historically, Pacific whiting exports to Ukraine, one of the largest whiting fillet markets, reached up to nearly $95 million per year, but instability in the region as a result of war has put that market in jeopardy and caused significant impacts to the supply chain. Compounded by trade embargoes, increased imported competition from low-cost proteins, inflationary pressures, rising operational costs, and more, these factors threaten the long-term stability and viability of this once-booming market and create uncertainty for coastal economies that rely on the whiting fishery’s success for their livelihoods,” wrote the lawmakers.

Read the full article at Lincoln County Leader

OREGON: West Coast lawmakers ask USDA to buy more Oregon fish

September 21, 2026 — Oregon and Washington lawmakers want the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support the West Coast’s ailing seafood industry by purchasing locally-caught fish to supplant profits from product that’s usually shipped to war-ravaged Ukraine.

The lawmakers, led by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, said in a Sept. 18 release that the agency’s purchase of Pacific Hake, or whiting, fillets, would support harvesters, processors, and coastal economies.

A letter from the lawmakers supporting the call said Ukraine is one of the largest Pacific whiting fillet markets. Regional instability from the war has impacted the supply chain and jeopardized that export market, which brings in nearly $95 million annually.

Read the full article at the Central Oregon Daily

OREGON: Oregon’s yelloweye rockfish fishery to reopen after 25 years

September 9, 2026 — A species once declared overfished has rebounded, and its return to the docks will give scientists their first good look at the fish in decades.

Oregon fishing fleets will be allowed to keep and sell yelloweye rockfish next year for the first time in 25 years.

The species was declared overfished in 2002, closing commercial fishing for it. A recent assessment found the population has rebuilt.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife fishery manager Troy Buell discussed the change with fishermen at a meeting in Port Orford Thursday.

“There was a time I didn’t think I’d ever see another yelloweye rockfish at the dock legally,” Buell said. “Now, it’s rebuilt.”

The amount fishermen will be allowed to land in 2027 and 2028 is small compared with catch limits for other species, but it represents a significant milestone in the recovery of yelloweye rockfish.

Read the full story at OPB

OREGON: Pacific Seafood and Oregon regulators are locked in battle over wastewater treatment from its coastal processing plants

September 9, 2026 — Supporting the fishing fleets that fan out to sea from the Oregon coast, there are about three dozen industrial processing businesses that clean, cut and package the products before they’re shipped to consumers around the world.

It’s not a pretty process.

One byproduct of all those fish guts and shellfish innards is wastewater packed with solids and oils, as well as possibly chemicals, bacteria and heavy metals. Whatever isn’t filtered out gets discharged back into the ocean, where it can deplete dissolved oxygen that fish and other aquatic species need to breathe, and can pose risks to public health.

Seafood processing plants have been locked in a battle with environmental regulators over water pollution, with millions of dollars in fines piling up and legal fights that have spanned years. Meanwhile, the business is consolidating and, from an employment standpoint, shrinking.

The fight pits Oregon’s environmental aspirations against one of its legacy industries — one that remains a defining part of life on the Oregon coast even as its footprint contracts.

Read the full article at The Oregonian

US research buoys are caught in currents of change

September 8, 2026 — A research buoy is something like an ant: A single one might not look like much, but put a bunch together and they can make something truly impressive.

In the water, a buoy becomes part of a larger system. Together, they provide all kinds of functions, from conducting ocean and weather research to helping satellites stay calibrated.

Buoys can handle almost anything the sea throws at them. William Burnett, a meteorologist who has led the National Data Buoy Center since 2022, described them continuing to collect data even after being “hit dead center by hurricanes.” That’s on top of the usual sources of wear-and-tear: rain, ice, barnacles, saltwater.

One of the biggest threats to buoys comes from surprisingly cute sources: seals and sea lions.

“We were noticing that the buoy cables were being chewed through,” Burnett noted in a phone interview.

To get around the problem, the National Data Buoy Center installed cages around the research devices. That’s mostly worked, though smarter animals do find a way to mess with them, even using them like makeshift surfboards.

“If they can find the platform,” Burnett said of these rambunctious animals, “they’ll get on it.”

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

Judge grants preliminary approval for a USD 2.25 million settlement over Dungeness crab price-fixing

August 26, 2026 — A U.S. federal court judge has granted preliminary approval on a settlement for a price-fixing lawsuit leveled against buyers of Dungeness crab in California, Washington, and Oregon.

Northern District of California Judge Alex G. Tse approved three settlements in the lawsuit, which was brought by Brand Little and Robin Burns. Tse approved a collective payment of USD 2.25 million (EUR 1.93 million) from three of the smaller crab buyers, who shared 5.27 percent of the Dungeness crab market during the period: Pacific Dream Seafood, Caito Seafood, and Fisherman’s Choice.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

OREGON: Oregon crabbers face new requirements

August 21, 2026 — Oregon commercial Dungeness crab fishermen will face new electronic monitoring requirements beginning Feb. 1 as state officials work to reduce the risk of whale entanglements.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission approved rules Friday requiring commercial crab vessels to use electronic monitoring systems that track vessel locations and record when fishermen pull crab pots. Other rules regarding permits for experimental fishing gear were also approved and took effect immediately.

Justin Ainsworth, Marine Resources Program Manager with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the system will have two main components: a GPS device and a hydraulic pressure sensor.

The GPS device will track a vessel’s location, while the hydraulic pressure sensor will detect when a vessel is using its hydraulic system to pull up a crab pot.

Read the full article at KVAL

OREGON: Oregon to start testing ropeless crabbing gear next spring to stop whale entanglements

August 19, 2026 — Oregon fishermen will begin testing ropeless crabbing technology next spring in an effort to save whales from often-fatal entanglements.

The state since 2021 has taken steps to reduce whale entanglements, including requiring additional late season crabbing tags and limiting how many crabbing pots fishermen can use and how deep they can place them, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Resources Program Manager Justin Ainsworth told the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission in a meeting Friday.

But with whale entanglements increasing, commissioners are turning to two new tools to reduce whale deaths. Rules the commission adopted Friday will require fishermen to share their vessel location with state fishery managers and allow them to test ropeless crabbing gear already allowed in California.

Traditional commercial crabbing gear requires hundreds of traps to sit on the ocean floor, each attached to a vertical line connected to a buoy on the surface. Whales can easily get entangled and injured, often fatally, in those lines, as was the case with a humpback whale freed about 20 miles off the Oregon Coast in late July that wasn’t expected to survive because the entanglement left it unable to feed.

The pop-up gear the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife can begin authorizing as soon as spring 2027, however, stores the rope and buoy with the trap on the seafloor. Fishermen can set a timer or trigger a release mechanism that allows the line to uncoil and buoy to surface to retrieve the catch, ensuring whales and other creatures have a clear path most of the time.

Pop-up gear is currently unlawful because all pot and trap gear must be marked at the surface with a buoy. The proposed rule would allow the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to issue some experimental fishing gear permits as soon as spring 2027, and the commission could consider wider authorization if the tests prove effective.

Read the full article at the Astorian

OREGON: Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission approves new rules for Dungeness crab fisheries

August 18, 2026 — The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission approved new rules for Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab fisheries during a meeting Friday, Aug. 14, with changes aimed in part at reducing whale entanglements.

The new rules include updates involving experimental gear, such as pop-up crab gear designed to reduce the amount of line in the water, as well as surface gear, including buoys and lines at the water’s surface.

Read the full article at KATU

OREGON: Oregon approves electronic monitoring system for Dungeness crab vessels

August 18, 2026 — During an 14 August board meeting, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) unanimously voted to pass electronic vessel monitoring requirements for the state’s Dungeness crab operations, aiming to reduce the risk of whale entanglement.

ODFW said in a release that each commercial crab vessel in the state’s Dungeness fishery must now install an electronic vessel monitoring system by 1 February 2027. Original legislation required the installation two months earlier, but upon listening to public feedback, the commission pushed back the deadline to next year.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource