Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Who’s the toughest shucker in New Bedford?

August 19, 2026 — Captain Eddie Dellecese, of the fishing vessel Buckeye, won the Fishing Heritage Center’s second annual Scallopalooza contest, shucking 100 scallops in under five minutes

New Bedford crowned a champion last week at its annual scallop shucking contest, which celebrates the intricate flick of the wrist that helps generate over $300 million in annual seafood revenue for the city.

Eddie Dellecese, captain of the fishing vessel Buckeye, shucked 50 scallops in under two and a half minutes in both rounds of last Thursday’s Scallopalooza contest.

With two thrusts of his knife, Dellecese can pop open a scallop and separate its white circular meat from the colorful guts and shell, which he flings forward into a trash pile. On average, the whole motion takes under 3 seconds.

Read the full article at NENC

$15M grant aims to protect New England’s ‘legacy’ seafood industry

August 17, 2026 — This grant will fund new fishery technology and innovations, which will help researchers at URI and other partners better understand the changing sea environment.

The seafood industry has long been an economic driver in Rhode Island, but it’s facing a number of challenges — including rising costs, warming waters and an aging workforce. In an effort to combat these obstacles, the National Science Foundation has awarded a $15 million grant to the University of Rhode Island and several regional partners.

Morning host Luis Hernandez spoke with Marta Gomez-Chiarri, an aquaculture and fisheries professor at URI, about how her lab is hoping to use the money to spur technological innovations that can help strengthen the health and viability of the local seafood industry.

Read the full article at Ocean State Media

ALASKA: Preliminary 2027 forecast for Alaska’s Bristol Bay fishery predicts more, smaller sockeye

August 17, 2026 — With the 2026 commercial salmon harvests winding down in Alaska, the seafood industry is already calculating how to navigate at a profit in 2027, given dynamic biological, economic, climate and market conditions.

Their forecast has a far-reaching socio-economic impact across the state — Bristol Bay’s commercial fishery had about $2 billion in economic impact and supported 15,000 jobs in 2019 according to research from the McKinley Research Group.

Data from the University of Washington’s forthcoming preliminary preseason forecast for the celebrated Bristol Bay wild sockeye fishery anticipate a run of 45 million fish next year, up from the 2026 forecast of 41.5 million. But run size is just one of many factors under consideration.

Fish size is one of those factors: 45 million big fish have more meat — and a bigger economic effect — than 45 million smaller fish. The size of the fish also helps determine which products the processors will produce.

“When we get really big returns the fish are smaller for their age, because they are competing for their food,” said salmon researcher Daniel Schindler of the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “We estimate how many fish of each age class are coming back.”

For 2027 those preliminary indications are for 20 million fish that have spent three years in the ocean — known as three ocean fish — and 30 million fish that have spent two years in the ocean in 2027. Because there are more fish that have spent less time in the ocean, the overall catch will be smaller.

But the climate can affect how much of that forecast becomes a reality.

Read the full article at Alaska Beacon

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