Saving Seafood

OREGON: Oregon lawmakers push to restore salmon hatchery funding

July 10, 2026 — A bipartisan group of Oregon coastal lawmakers is urging the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to reverse its decision to cut funding for a salmon hatchery program they say is critical to the state’s commercial and recreational fisheries.

BPA announced in June that it plans to end its more than $2 million in annual funding for the Select Area Fisheries Enhancement (SAFE) program. Which is managed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, according to reporting by OPB. The funding has covered more than one-third of the program’s operating costs since 1993.

BPA is a federal nonprofit agency under the U.S. Department of Energy that also markets wholesale electricity generated by 31 federal dams and one nuclear plant in the Pacific Northwest.

According to OPB, BPA said it is ending its support because the program has not made sufficient progress toward improving populations of salmon protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

OREGON: Oregon coast lawmakers push back on fish hatchery cuts

July 8, 2026 — The Bonneville Power Administration said in June that it would cut funding for a program that raises millions of salmon in hatcheries.

But a bipartisan group of Oregon coastal lawmakers wants the agency to reverse that decision, saying it could rock the commercial and sportfishing industries that their communities rely on.

BPA provides more than $2 million annually to the Select Area Fisheries Enhancement, or SAFE, program, which the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife manages. It has helped cover more than a third of the SAFE program’s cost.

Read the full article at OPB

Sullivan reintroduces sweeping bill targeting bycatch, seafloor impacts

July 8, 2026 — U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) has reintroduced the Bycatch Reduction Act, legislation that would expand federal efforts to reduce bycatch, limit seafloor impacts from trawl gear, improve fisheries monitoring and increase transparency in fishery management.

According to Sullivan’s office, the bill builds on recommendations from the Alaska Salmon Task Force, which was created through legislation he authored and signed into law in 2022.

The proposal would establish new standards and monitoring requirements designed to keep both midwater and bottom trawl nets off the seafloor, require proven salmon excluder devices on pollock vessels, invest in salmon tagging and genetic sampling, expand ecosystem research, and create a new flume tank testing facility to evaluate fishing gear under simulated ocean conditions. The bill also would reauthorize NOAA’s Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program and encourage fishermen to test new gear and technologies aimed at reducing bycatch and habitat impacts.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Alaska’s wild salmon harvest climbs to over 14.5 million fish

July 7, 2026 — On the eve of July 4 and a plethora of holiday barbecues, Alaska’s commercial salmon harvest had already brought in over 14 million wild sockeye salmon, with the big surge coming from Bristol Bay.

Silver Bay Seafoods and Trident Seafoods posted $1.60 a pound for chilled, bled sockeye, 30 cents more than last year’s pre-season price and considered a conservative starting price for the 2026 season, said Janis Harsilla, business manager for the Bristol Bay Fishermen’s Association.

Retail sales were steady, with prices ranging between $16.99 to $18.99 a pound at King Soopers supermarkets, between $23 and $29.99 a pound at some online direct-to-consumer shops, $15.99 a pound at Anchorage Fred Meyer, part of the Kroger chain, and $20.99 a pound at Anchorage Carrs-Safeway supermarkets. The best deal in town was still $14.99 a pound at Costco warehouses in Anchorage for fresh Copper River reds. 

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

7 Ways El Niño and Large Marine Heatwave Could Affect West Coast Marine Species

June 15, 2026 — A large marine heatwave has bathed parts of the West Coast in very warm ocean waters over the past year, breaking temperature records in the Pacific. NOAA has also announced that El Niño has developed in the tropical Pacific and is predicted to intensify to a moderate or strong level this fall. El Niño represents another form of marine warming , though with different drivers and influences. The prolonged period of high temperatures could affect fisheries and marine life in the California Current that have already been buffeted by shifting ocean conditions over the last decade.

One factor may help dampen the impacts, though: The same strong upwelling of cool water along the coast that fuels the West Coast ecosystem with nutrients could help keep some warmer waters at bay, as happened in 2025.

We have seen these back-to-back heat events before. About a decade ago, a major marine heatwave known as “The Blob” began raising ocean temperatures off the West Coast, peaking in 2015. One of the strongest El Niños on record followed in 2015–2016, amplifying ocean warmth—as the current forecast predicts for the coming year. That was a worst-case scenario that drove changes around the world. The Pacific endured a record count of tropical cyclones and the Caribbean Sea and parts of Africa experienced severe droughts. That situation was more extreme than now, with the Blob lasting longer and affecting the entire West Coast compared to the smaller recent marine heatwave. However, research and observations during that unprecedented climatic pileup suggest the kind of changes we may see in the coming months along the West Coast. Though these changes are centered in the Pacific, they have far-reaching impacts.

Here are some of the ways warming water can impact marine life, coastal communities, and economies.

1. Shifting Fisheries

Research found that some commercial West Coast species, such as market squid, may be sensitive to these long-term and episodic changes in ocean temperatures. The shift of market squid north along the West Coast in response to warming from the Blob and subsequent El Niño created new fishing opportunities in Oregon and Washington during the Blob that remained afterward. Squid landings in Oregon rose from none in 2015 to nearly 3 million pounds worth more than $1 million in 2016 and continued to grow rapidly through 2020. This provided new opportunities for purse seine vessels whose opportunities in other fisheries affected by the Blob—such as sardine, Alaska herring, and Alaska salmon—had dwindled. Seafood processors in Oregon scaled up to handle more squid, and Oregon fisheries managers developed their first regulations for the emerging squid fishery. Market squid had been the largest commercial fishery by volume in California, but California landings dropped by more than half from 2014 to 2015. They remain substantially lower than they were prior to the Blob and El Niño.

Meanwhile, tropical species such as whale sharks and hammerhead sharks made northerly appearances off Southern California while fishing vessels caught albacore tuna much closer to shore as far north as Washington. Fishing boats caught a skipjack tuna off the Copper River in Alaska, and surveys turned up an ocean sunfish and thresher shark off southeast Alaska. Pacific bluefin tuna increased in number and size in U.S. waters, exciting recreational anglers and generating new revenue for the charter fleet. This year, Southern California anglers have begun catching dorado and yellowfin tuna much earlier in the year than usual, suggesting these northerly shifts may have begun.

2. Hungry California Sea Lion Pups

Higher sea surface temperatures also affect other fish species, including sardines and anchovy. These fish are high-energy staple foods for California sea lions that breed in Southern California’s Channel Islands, but declined with warming ocean temperatures. Sea lions turned to lower quality forage species such as rockfish and squid. Nursing sea lion mothers had to travel farther to find the food their pups needed, forcing pups to fast for longer periods at the rookery. The weight of sea lion pups declined, according to long-term studies in the Channel Islands . In El Niño years, many hungry pups set off on their own in search of food before their usual weaning time. In 2013–2016, as many as 4,000 pups arrived on California beaches, skinny and hungry. These extreme events taxed rehabilitation facilities and prompted NOAA Fisheries to declare an Unusual Mortality Event for the species. Researchers later estimated that an increase of 1 degree Celsius in sea surface temperatures could reduce the growth rate of the sea lion population to zero. A 2-degree rise would reduce the population size by about 7 percent.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Fish Traps Have Been Banned on the Columbia River for Nearly a Century. Could Bringing Them Back Help Save Salmon?

March 27, 2026 — In the late summer of 1805, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery expedition came upon a camp of Shoshone Indians, who gifted the haggard explorers a meal that raised their spirits.

“This was the first salmon I had seen and perfectly convinced me that we were on the waters of the Pacific Ocean,” Lewis journaled.

He knew that Atlantic salmon moved between ocean and river, inhabiting both saltwater and freshwater environments. The presence of salmon, he thought, surely indicated that he and his group were near their destination on the Pacific coast.

What Lewis did not know was that those fish, caught in the Lemhi River in Idaho, had endured the longest migration of any salmon species on Earth. Certain sockeye salmon climb more than 6,500 feet as they swim from the Pacific upstream through the Columbia River and its tributaries, scaling waterfalls as tall as 20 feet to reach spawning grounds tucked in the snowcapped peaks of central Idaho. Unfortunately for the expedition, the mouth of the Columbia was still more than 600 miles away.

As the explorers followed the river to the west, they encountered an astonishing population of salmon. Historians estimate that at the time, up to 20 million salmon migrated inland in the Pacific Northwest annually

A combination of factors—including hydropower development, habitat loss, pollution, warming waters, overfishing and the introduction of hatchery fish—drove a dramatic decline in salmon population over time. By the late 1970s, those legendary runs had declined by nearly 97 percent. Today, approximately one million salmon and steelhead, an endangered species of trout often grouped with salmon, remain in the region. Seventeen salmon populations are listed as threatened or endangered on the West Coast.

Amid the wide-ranging threats to salmon, conservationists are considering whether a tool known as the fish trap could help protect endangered populations. The traps corral fish into a fenced-off area of the river, where they can then be harvested or released safely. The practice gained popularity among early settlers racing to catch salmon—but in the mid-20th century, following bitter disputes among fishers over the technology, Oregon and Washington banned it.

In 2025, those states authorized three fish traps to operate on the Columbia River—making them the first to harvest commercially in the region in nearly 100 years. The effort was the initial phase of an experiment to test whether the traps could be an economically viable alternative to gillnets, the leading method for catching salmon.

Other experiments, too, have trialed the traps for their economic and conservation potential throughout the past decade. But even as some people see promise in the tool, the work has reopened old wounds in the local fishing community—dredging up long-buried controversies and resurfacing the fish trap’s fraught history.

Read the full article at the Smithsonian Maganzine 

CALIFORNIA: After years of closure, California salmon fishing set to reopen this spring — with tight limits

March 18, 2026 — For the first time in four years, salmon fishing seasons will open in California for both commercial and recreational use this spring.

That could be great news for local anglers and for professional fishers in Santa Cruz County, many of whom previously relied on the lucrative season for a significant portion of their annual income. But that doesn’t mean California salmon will come flooding back to markets, one local fish distributor said.

The sport fishing season will open first, on April 11 in ocean waters south of Pigeon Point, about 30 miles north of Santa Cruz. The commercial season, which has been closed in the state since 2023 due to low stock numbers, is set to open in California in mid-May, with a final date and regulations to be set in mid-April. The recreational fishery had only limited openings in 2025 following closures in 2023 and 2024 for the same reason.

Over the past year, salmon populations in the area have rebounded, with population sizes more than double last year’s estimates, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a media release on Friday.

Read the full article at Lookout Santa Cruz

MAINE: The future is now: Salmon aquaculture embraces precision farming

August 21, 2025 — From afar, the series of 100-meter rings that constitute an Atlantic salmon farm site in the Gulf of Maine appear unchanged since the transition from steel cages to high-density polyethylene pens in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Atlantic salmon aquaculture has been practiced in Maine since the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the first commercial lease being issued by the Maine Department of Marine Resources for a farm site in Cobscook Bay near Eastport in 1982. The industry has evolved and modernized tremendously since then, with the adoption of precision farming defining the last 20 years or so.

So what is precision farming? Also known as precision agriculture, precision farming refers to the use of advanced technologies and data analysis to optimize farming practices. Farmers who embrace precision farming, in theory, increase efficiency and productivity and minimize environmental impact.

For aquatic farmers, that translates to more precise and scalable ways to feed fish and to monitor fish health and growth, ocean conditions and water quality.

Cooke USA has been farming Atlantic salmon in Maine since 2004, celebrating 20 years of aquaculture operations in the state last year. Today, Cooke USA’s operations consist of marine farm sites in Downeast Maine, a processing plant in Machiasport, and three land-based freshwater hatcheries in both the eastern and western parts of Maine. Its fresh farmed Atlantic salmon is sold at supermarkets and restaurants throughout New England and the United States.

It was around the early 2000s that the company, and the industry by and large, began embracing precision farming. It’s what a passerby on a boat or an onlooker from the shore can’t see that’s revolutionizing Atlantic salmon aquaculture in Maine and globally — hardware such as underwater cameras and sensors, which have been used for years, and the AI-enable software behind the hardware.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

Salmon Candy Isn’t Just a TikTok Trend — Here’s What You Need to Know

August 19, 2025 — A different kind of sweet treat is trending on social media — and it starts with a popular piece of seafood.

Clips of gleaming, lacquered, deep reddish-pink filets of candied salmon are cropping up across TikTok, as users share videos of themselves tasting what they call a protein-packed snack that strikes a perfect balance of sweet and savory. The version drawing the most attention is from Idaho-based brand Solovey Kitchen.

Because making candied salmon from scratch is a labor-intensive process, it’s no surprise most users are buying it — though the trend has inspired some to try their hand at homemade batches.

Demand has surged so dramatically that Solovey Kitchen now notes on its website: “Due to the unusually high volume of orders we’ve received over the past few days, our processing time has been adjusted to 3–5 weeks.”

While the brand is at the center of the current candied salmon craze, it didn’t invent the dish. Far from it — this sweet, smoky specialty has a rich history worth highlighting amid its moment in the spotlight.

Read the full article at Food & Wine

Snake River showdown over salmon and power

July 15, 2025 — Are you an optimist? If you thought a lasting agreement over what to do about the Lower Snake River Dams (LSRD) was at hand in 2023, the answer is probably yes.

Too often, environmental challenges defy resolution. These four dams, while a clean source of hydroelectric power and a boon to agriculture in the Pacific Northwest, significantly impede the migration of spawning salmon. And while they transformed Lewiston, Idaho, into the most inland port on the West Coast, they created a series of reservoirs in which warm water and reduced velocity set the stage for predation of fish. Several salmon and steelhead runs that once were at the heart of Native American life are nearing extinction.

The four tribes whose rights to fish in “usual and accustomed places” are enshrined by treaty, along with environmentalists and fishing interests, have sued the government numerous times for failing to meaningfully protect salmon.

Construction of the first dam began in 1955. The first tribal fish-ins, so-called, were staged in the 1960s in the name of reclaiming fishing rights.

The tide, as it were, began to turn in 2016, when a federal judge found that the government’s plans for protecting fish in the Lower Snake River were inadequate and ordered a new plan — one that “might well require” breaching of the dams — by 2018.

In 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied the tribes’ request to remove the dams.

In 2022, Washington’s U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Gov. Jay Inslee released a study that concluded that dam removal was the salmon’s best bet. Murray, The New York Times reported, had “previously resisted” this conclusion.

Finally, in 2023, the Biden administration entered a “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) valued at $1 billion with the treaty tribes to restore the wild salmon population. The agreement did not commit the United States to removing the dams, saying that was a decision for Congress. But the table was set.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman