July 29, 2026 — A U.S. court has authorized distribution of USD 152.2 million (EUR 133.7 million) from funds linked to the settlement of a lawsuit against Chicken of the Sea, Bumble Bee, and StarKist related to their alleged connections to a price-fixing scheme for canned tuna.
U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California signed the order on 27 July, closing a longstanding legal battle.
July 21, 2026 — The following was released by the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
On July 20, 2026, researchers embarked on the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program’s West Coast Ocean Acidification mission (WCOA 2026). Departing from San Diego aboard the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (R/V) Sikuliaq, the team will travel north to Washington, adding important new observations to NOAA’s long-term monitoring of ocean acidification and its impacts on marine resources.
WCOA 2026 will couple ocean chemistry, biology, and physics to build a more comprehensive view of how extreme events impact biogeochemistry and ecosystems.
“Results from past WCOA cruises have provided novel insights into acidification rates and impacts in coastal and estuary habitats that provide our nation with rich fish and shellfish resources,” said Dr. Simone Alin, Supervisory Oceanographer, NOAA/PMEL. Resource managers and harvesters can use this information to inform fisheries management decisions.
This intensive 30-day coastal research cruise aboard the 261-foot research vessel offers scientists a unique opportunity of sampling during an El Niño that is on track to become one of the strongest on record. El Niño brings warmer water and can alter upwelling and precipitation patterns in the region. Phytoplankton and zooplankton communities will follow these warmer waters, which impacts food webs and fisheries as seen during past marine heatwaves.
Two days after the Sikuliaq departs, the PMEL SeaTrac will head south from Washington to collect added coastal measurements during peak ocean acidification and hypoxia season and pick up any El Niño signal that may have made to the northern California Current System this summer. These OA cruises provide critical high-quality data for the U.S. Coastal Large Marine Ecosystems, and are essential for modeling and forecasting changes in ocean acidification and hypoxia to better prepare for future impacts to valued fisheries and ecosystems.
Led by researchers at the University of Washington’s Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, & Ecosystem Studies and PMEL, researchers will collect high-quality ocean chemistry data, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and other observations. Scientists will also collect environmental DNA, which can reveal the diversity and abundance of ocean life in different ocean conditions.
Data collected during WCOA 2026 are essential for validating models and forecasts of ocean conditions like J-SCOPE. This short term (six to nine month) forecast is used for the California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment. High quality ocean carbon chemistry data is required to forecast the saturation state of calcium carbonate, the mineral building block used by shellfish like Dungeness crabs, clams, and oysters.
Other coordinated regular coastal fisheries surveys, including the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) enhance the impact of WCOA 2026. By conducting biological net tows at established stations, researchers will gain high-quality data on marine life.
Ultimately, the data collected through WCOA 2026 will serve as a foundational benchmark for monitoring, modeling and research in the region. These data will provide calibration information for sensor networks designed to fill measurement gaps between research cruises. With the potential for sampling to occur as ocean conditions change with El Niño, NOAA and our partners will be able to better understand how extreme conditions alter vital marine resources like Dungeness crabs, krill, plankton and other fisheries.
January 24, 2025 — San Diego scientists are collecting samples of ash from California’s coast to measure how toxins and urban debris from the Los Angeles wildfires could affect nearby fisheries and the food webs of local ecosystems.
August 16, 2024 — A rarely seen deep sea fish resembling a serpent was found floating dead on the ocean surface off the San Diego coast and was brought ashore for study, marine experts said.
The silvery, 12-foot-long (3.6-meter) oarfish was found last weekend by a group of snorkelers and kayakers in La Jolla Cove, north of downtown San Diego, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said in a statement.
It’s only the 20th time an oarfish is known to have washed up in California since 1901, according to institution fish expert Ben Frable.
June 6, 2024 — Every June, fisherman Scott Hawkins and his small crew set sail from a marina in San Diego and travel hundreds of miles, scouring the water, hoping for a good catch of albacore tuna. It can take hours or days to stumble upon a school of them.
But when they do, everyone springs into action at once.
The men grab fishing poles taller than they are, stand in a row on the edge of the boat and cast their lines into the water. Every few seconds, one of them pulls up a fat, two-foot-long albacore tuna and hoists it over his shoulder onto the pile. Every thud is another one landing atop the dozens already flapping on deck.
May 24, 2021 — San Diego, California, U.S.A.-based Bumble Bee Seafood and its parent company, FCF Co., announced on 24 May they will be pursuing Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for two of their tuna fisheries.
The companies will pursue MSC fishery assessments of two longline fisheries that span multiple nations, including Taiwan, Fiji, Vanuatu, and others. The fishery covers three oceans, three tuna species, and more than 250 longline vessels, predominantly catching albacore tuna. The fisheries represent approximately 50 percent of Bumble Bee’s entire albacore tuna production.
February 11, 2021 — “It started with rumors, said Pete Halmay, seasoned urchin diver and president of San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group. At seventy-something, he’s still out getting salty almost every day. Two or three months before spiny lobster season was set to open in early October, Halmay said, talk on the docks was that Asia wasn’t buying this year, demand was way down due to covid-19, and the price San Diego fishermen would get for spiny lobster would be 30-50 percent of the norm. In a typical year, 95 percent of spiny lobster caught in San Diego goes to overseas markets, primarily Asia.
Coveted for its resemblance to a dragon, California spiny lobster is a lucky dish for Lunar New Year and is served at weddings and large get-togethers. Covid-19 crashed those parties in late 2019 and throughout 2020. Spiny lobster prices crashed too. President Trump’s trade war with China and the retaliatory tariffs didn’t help. The rumored price prior to the season opening was $8 per pound, down from the 2019 average of about $20 and 2015’s high near $30. California Department of Fish and Wildlife data showed that spiny lobster was the most profitable local catch at $3.8 million in 2017. In 2018, it brought in $3 million, beating out bigeye tuna. When the pandemic started in China in late 2019, it coincided with the height of legal spiny lobster season in California. Sales in 2019 dropped to $1.8 million. Among San Diego’s top-grossing seafoods, spiny lobster saw the biggest decline. Said Halmay, “They [local fishermen] got together and decided, ‘We can’t make a living off that. Let’s do something about it.’”
Seafood typically changes hands four or five times before reaching the consumer. In San Diego, fishermen sell off the dock to whomever is buying at the highest price, and they have no control over the “chain of custody” after that. “We know one up and one down, where it comes from and who buys it. We don’t really know for sure where it goes after that.”
February 9, 2021 — The following was released by Fishful Future:
The Fishful Future project is a newly launched collaborative effort joining seafood processors, fishery scientists, local fishermen, and renowned chefs. Supported by an award from the competitive National Marine Fisheries Service’s Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program, the project explores opportunities for San Diego’s fishing, seafood processing, and culinary industries to move toward a zero-waste seafood supply chain by fully using each fish.
Around 50 percent of each fish by weight generally remains after processing for the fillet market. This half of the fish is often discarded, or sold for cents on the pound, despite the valuable proteins and nutrients contained for a wide range of applications.
To encourage the use of the entire fish, the team explores the value in each part. The Fishful Future project addresses local food security by empowering home chefs to prepare less familiar secondary cuts with culturally diverse recipes, partnering with community groups in food insecure areas, and working with project chefs to develop new restaurant presentations.
The project also brings together entrepreneurs from a broad range of businesses in a new collective approach to increase sustainability by using what is currently considered to be waste. Seafood processing byproducts find valuable applications in bait, fertilizer, pet foods, bio-pharmaceutical, bio-medical, and artistic fields.
“More complete use of the fish means greater economic value and opportunity for fishermen, processors, and everyone who enjoys seafood,” said Dave Rudie, Catalina Offshore Products founder and president. “We owe it to the fish and to our customers to make the most complete use of each fish that is taken out of the ocean.”
Leading the culinary approaches are four San Diego chefs: Davin Waite, Karen Barnett, Christina Ng, and Rob Ruiz. These chefs are not only vocal, active contributors in their community but also wildly creative, committed to respecting their ingredients, and embody the goals of the project in their cookery and daily lives.
The multidisciplinary team is led by Catalina Offshore Products and scientists at the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, with partners including the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market, the Port of San Diego, Iceland’s Ocean Cluster, and Oregon State University’s Seafood Research & Education Center.
“The only way we can succeed is by doing this together,” said Sarah Mesnick, from NOAA Fisheries Southwest Fisheries Science Center, who is a scientific advisor in the effort. “All partners in the seafood and product supply chain bring their own expertise and experience to the project, so that together we look at these valuable species in a new, holistic, and more sustainable way.”
Inquiries are welcome from parties interested in joining this effort toward a Fishful Future. Learn more by visiting fishfulfuture.com and following along on Instagram @fishfulfuture.
February 2, 2021 — A new collaborative project, Fishful Future, seeks to movethe fishing, seafood processing, and culinary industries in San Diego, California, U.S.A. toward a zero-waste supply chain.
Backed by seafood processors, fishery scientists, local fishermen, and renowned chefs, Fishful Future primarily promotes fully utilizing each fish that enters the supply chain.
September 21, 2020 — A prestigious San Diego research institute and a Long Beach social-benefit investment group are teaming to create what could be the first fish farm in federal waters.
The proposed Pacific Ocean AquaFarm would be about four miles offshore of San Diego and would generate 5,000 metric tons of sushi-grade yellowfish each year — enough for 11 million servings of the popular seafood.
A partnership between Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute and Pacific6 Enterprise, the project also would create a diversity of economic opportunities and provide a local source for a fish that is now mostly imported.
The institute submitted a federal permit application for the project Sept. 9. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will lead the environmental review of their proposal, which will take about 18 to 24 months. Construction would take about a year, and the first set of fish stocked there would be ready for market 18 to 22 months after that, Kent said.