Saving Seafood

US embassy launched IUU reporting hub in the Philippines

August 14, 2026 — The U.S. Embassy in the Philippines has launched a new initiative to gather community reports of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing around the Southeast Asian nation and share them with authorities.

“Illegal, unreported, and unregulated [IUU] fishing is both an economic and a national security challenge. It depletes fish stocks, disrupts supply chains, distorts markets, threatens food security, and places responsible fishers and legitimate businesses at a disadvantage,” U.S. Embassy Officer Taylor Fincher said in a release. “Addressing illegal fishing and related maritime concerns is an important area of cooperation between the United States and the Philippines.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

ALASKA: Beyond bycatch: The bigger story of Alaska pollock

August 14, 2026 — Alaska pollock is the biggest catch in the United States. But the fish drawing the most attention are the ones the fleet never meant to pull up.

For Sam Murphy, vice president of the Alaska Pollock Fishery Alliance (APFA), the focus on bycatch misses a much larger story.

That argument comes at a pointed moment for the fishery. In February, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) voted 8-3 to recommend the first mandatory limit on chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, an annual cap of 45,000 Western Alaska chum, paired with a corridor closure near the Alaska Peninsula between June 10 and Aug. 31, apportioned among the at-sea processor, catcher vessel, mothership, and Community Development Quota (CDQ) sectors.

The NPFMC heard testimony from more than 170 people over four days, including tribal leaders, subsistence fishermen, CDQ groups, and pollock industry participants. The new rules are not expected to take effect until June 2028 at the earliest.

Murphy didn’t dismiss the difficult conversations about salmon bycatch or the challenges facing Alaska’s fisheries. Those discussions are necessary, he said. But after spending the past year and a half aboard fishing vessels, touring processing plants, and visiting fishing communities across Alaska, he believes the conversation had become too narrowly focused on a single issue while overlooking the broader role pollock plays in the state’s seafood economy.

“I don’t really see it as an argument,” Murphy said in an interview with National Fisherman. “To me, it’s simply the reality that I hope more people start to recognize.”

That reality, he said, was one of interdependence.

Murphy described Alaska’s seafood economy as a three-legged stool. Commercial fishermen harvest the resource, processors transform that harvest into products consumed around the world, and coastal communities provide the workforce, ports, and infrastructure that allow the system to function.

“Remove any one of those three legs, and the whole thing starts to wobble,” Murphy said.

That connection, he said, was why framing Alaska’s fisheries as rivals missed the point.

“Pollock doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Neither do salmon, crab, cod, or halibut,” Murphy said. “These fisheries are connected economically, operationally, and culturally.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

OREGON: Southern Oregon Coast seafood processors say tariffs are an old problem, not a new crisis

August 14, 2026 — A state report says President Donald Trump’s tariffs have hurt Oregon trade, but seafood processors on the South Coast say the effects on their industry are more complicated.

Oregon’s tariff analysis says the latest trade policies have disrupted exports and created uncertainty for businesses across the state. Oregon importers paid nearly $3 billion in tariffs between March and December 2025, while exports fell 17% over the year.

Lori Steele, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, said tariffs are nothing new for the industry.

“There’s definitely concern about retaliatory tariffs, but these are coming in countries where we’ve been dealing with tariffs for a long time,” Steele said.

Read the full article at OPB

US State Department looking for NGO partner to shine light on forced labor and IUU fishing

August 13, 2026 — The U.S. Department of State is seeking an NGO partner that can identify evidence of forced labor and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the seafood supply chain.

“By increasing transparency and accountability in global seafood supply chains, the program will help combat unfair competition, support responsible business practices, protect marine resources, and reinforce a level playing field for the U.S. seafood sector,” the State Department said in its announcement.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

WASHINGTON: Coastal tuna fishery flounders under high fuel prices

August 12, 2026 — The 2026 commercial albacore tuna season is off to a limping start, beleaguered by high fuel prices, sporadic fishing and fewer fishermen.

“Our expenses have gone up over 30% overall,” said commercial fisherman Kris Griffith, 41. “It’s been a struggle to figure out how we’re going to do best.”

Soaring fuel prices, including marine diesel, have made the necessary offshore trips — which typically require fishermen to travel at least 50 miles into the Pacific to reach the tuna fishing grounds — increasingly less lucrative (and less appealing) to commercial fishermen already operating on increasingly narrow margins.

Read the full article at the Daily Observer

MASSACHUSETTS: Scallopalooza Returns to New Bedford With Bigger Crowds and a High-Stakes Shucking Contest

August 10, 2026 — Scallopalooza is back. The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is celebrating the fishing industry on Thursday, August 13 with the second annual Scallopalooza. The event is a three-hour party that features vendors, food, and music, plus the much-anticipated scallop-shucking contest to determine the best shucker in the area.

Joe Ritter, Programs Director at the FHC, visited Townsquare Sunday to promote the event. “It will be a smashing success,” Ritter said. “I’m calling it now.”

Last year’s Scallopalooza drew about 500 people to downtown New Bedford, but bigger crowds are anticipated this year, prompting organizers to make a small change in the event’s layout.

New Layout and Jumbotron Added for Bigger Crowds

This year’s shucking contest will move slightly from the FHC parking lot to Bethel and Elm Streets, with the downward slope of the street providing a type of amphitheater for spectators. There will also be a large Jumbotron screen located behind the stage to provide a closer look at the stage.

Read the full artilcle at WBSM

OREGON: Port Orford wants to become a South Coast seafood hub. Here’s what comes next

August 10, 2026 — The Port of Port Orford is laying the groundwork for several projects aimed at moving it closer to its long-term goal of becoming a South Coast seafood hub.

The work includes a $500,000 system to bring seawater onto the dock for live seafood, a federal study of the port’s electricity use and an engineering review of the hillside above the only road serving the waterfront.

Port officials and contractors outlined the projects during an Aug. 4 town hall.

Business Oregon, the state’s economic development agency, is funding the seawater project.

Seafood buyers currently lower their own pumps into the ocean to fill tanks for live fish and crab. Port officials say a permanent system would make that process more reliable and help fishermen maintain access to higher-value markets.

Philip Russom, a commercial fisherman and port tenant, said seawater access is particularly important for the local fishery.

“Rockfish is one of our main staples, and it’s one of our live products that we need the seawater system to be able to maintain our markets for,” Russom said.

Portland-based NWR Construction is designing the system. The contractor expects to have a firm design by the end of September and hopes to have the system operating by summer 2027. The project will require permits from several state and federal agencies to draw water from the ocean and return it.

Read the full article at OPB

Section 301 tariffs leave US seafood importers with few avenues to avoid rising costs

August 10, 2026 — The latest round of tariffs implemented by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) targeted several countries that heavily produce salmon and shrimp with duty rates between 10 percent and 12.5 percent, leaving U.S. seafood importers with few options for relief from rising costs.

The 60 global economies hit with Section 301 tariffs include top salmon-producing countries such as Norway, Chile, and the U.K., as well as shrimp-producing nations like Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Climate-driven disruption, constrained supply adding volatility to aquaculture markets in the back half of 2026

August 7, 2026 — Global aquaculture firms and the wider value chain entered the second half of 2026 facing a difficult combination of constrained supply, rising feed costs, climate uncertainty, and uneven consumer demand, according to Rabobank’s latest Global Aquaculture Update.

After weathering several major disruptions over the past decade, the industry has now entered a phase in which climate change, tightening feed ingredient supplies, and geopolitical uncertainty are reshaping global seafood markets, Rabobank Seafood Analyst Novel Sharma told SeafoodSource, explaining the industry should plan for continual uncertainty rather than treat each challenge as an isolated disruption.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

WASHINGTON: ICE reportedly conducting “soft raids” at Premier Packing processing facility in Washington

August 5, 2026 — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are reportedly conducting “soft raids” to detain workers at a seafood processing facility owned by Lynden, Washington, U.S.A.-based Premier Packing.

According to local Washington news stations and immigration advocacy groups, employees have been detained on numerous occasions by ICE outside the perimeter of the processing plant.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource