Saving Seafood

Virginia Institute of Marine Science Calls on Seafood Businesses to Participate in Regional Offshore Wind Impact Survey

August 5, 2026 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) is surveying Northeast and Mid-Atlantic shoreside businesses to quantify the economic value of the coastal economy in advance of potential offshore wind development. Seafood processors, dealers, wholesalers, distributors and other first-sale seafood businesses from Massachusetts to Virginia are encouraged to participate.

The survey, the Seafood First Sale Value Added Survey, was funded by a grant from the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), a member of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers program, which brings together marine scientists and members of the commercial fishing and wind energy industries to collaborate on fisheries research.

The survey is designed to address the existing information gaps in how offshore wind development may affect shoreside businesses and local fishing economies. While previous surveys have focused on how offshore wind development may affect commercial fishing vessels, there is less information available about the impacts on processors, dealers, wholesalers and other businesses.

Strong industry participation is essential for the success of the survey, which will be used to provide baseline data for economic impact assessments, and inform offshore wind policy decisions and potential compensation programs.

“Compensation programs cannot fairly account for shoreside losses unless decision makers understand how seafood moves from the vessel through the other businesses that support the commercial fishing economy,” said Peter Hughes, Director of Sustainability for Atlantic Capes Fisheries and one of the fishing industry stakeholder representatives advising the multistate Fisheries Compensation Program. “This survey gives those businesses an opportunity to document their economic contribution and explain what reductions in regional landings could mean for their operations, employees and communities.”

The VIMS research team plans to use the survey results to develop a customized economic model assessing how different levels of commercial fishing impacts could affect businesses at the individual, sectoral, and regional levels. The work will help coastal communities plan for and mitigate the effects of competing ocean uses.

“The businesses operating on shore are an indispensable part of the commercial fishing industry, and it is important to be able to quantify their potential losses,” said Jeff Kaelin, Director of Sustainability and Government Relations for Lund’s Fisheries and another stakeholder representative to the Fisheries Compensation Program. “Seafood businesses should take the time to participate so future compensation policies are based on credible information from the people who buy, handle, process and distribute the catch.”

The 25-question online survey takes an estimated 15 to 20 minutes to complete. It asks about business operations, cost structures, seafood species purchased, products produced, purchasing and distribution channels, and businesses’ ability to adapt to reductions in regional commercial landings.

Responses are voluntary, and participants are not required to provide identifying information. Survey records will be maintained securely, and any email addresses submitted for the optional gift-card drawing will be separated from survey responses after the survey closes. Participants may enter a drawing for one of five $100 gift cards.

Seafood businesses may complete the survey here.

Businesses receiving an email or postcard invitation are especially encouraged to respond. Questions about the survey may be directed to Dr. Andrew M. Scheld of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at scheld@vims.edu or 804-684-7160.

About SCEMFIS
The Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) brings together academic and industry expertise to address urgent scientific challenges facing sustainable fisheries. Through advanced methods, analytical tools, and collaborative research, SCEMFIS works to reduce uncertainty in stock assessments and improve the long-term sustainability of key marine resources.

SCEMFIS is an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center supported by the National Science Foundation. Industry organizations join SCEMFIS through an Industry Membership Agreement with one of the center’s site universities and contribute both financial support and valuable expertise to help shape research priorities.

Its university partners include the University of Southern Mississippi (lead institution) and the Batten School of Coastal and Marine Sciences & VIMS at William & Mary. The center also collaborates with scientists from a broad network of institutions, including Old Dominion University, Rutgers University, the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, the University of Maryland, and the University of Rhode Island. These researchers bring deep expertise in finfish, shellfish, and marine mammal science.

Demand for SCEMFIS’s services continues to grow, driven by the fishing industry’s need for responsive, science-based support. The center provides timely access to expert input on stock assessment issues, participates in working groups, and conducts targeted studies that lead to better data collection, improved survey design, and more accurate modeling-all in service of sustainable, science-driven fishery management.

Survey seeks impact of offshore wind power on seafood businesses

August 5, 2026 — Looking ahead to potential offshore wind energy development along the East Coast, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) says researchers are surveying Northeast and Mid-Atlantic shoreside businesses to “quantify the economic value of the coastal economy in advance of potential offshore wind development.

VIMS is asking seafood processors, dealers, wholesalers, distributors and other first-sale seafood businesses from Massachusetts to Virginia are to participate in the “Seafood First Sale Value Added Survey.”

The project is funded by a grant from the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS), a member of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers program. The science center brings together marine scientists and members of the commercial fishing and wind energy industries to collaborate on fisheries research.

The survey is designed to “address the existing information gaps in how offshore wind development may affect shoreside businesses and local fishing economies,” according to a statement from the center.

Despite the offshore wind industry’s economic turmoil – and determined political and policy opposition from the Trump administration – plans for turbine arrays off southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic have survived.

Revolution Wind developer Eversource Energy  said it incurred a $164 million after-tax charge from construction cost increases as it battled the Trump administration’s stop-work orders on the project.

Notably Dominion Energy recently said its 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is 81% built out, and completion is expected by the end of 2027.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Inside the overlooked world of Bristol Bay’s salmon tenders

August 5, 2026 — When Bristol Bay’s salmon run reaches its peak, the spotlight usually falls on the fishermen hauling sockeye over the rails. But just offshore, another fleet is working around the clock to keep the fishery moving.

Tender boats shuttle thousands of pounds of salmon from fishermen to processors, fuel skiffs, deliver groceries and gear, and often serve as floating support vessels during one of the busiest commercial fisheries in the U.S. Without them, many fishermen simply couldn’t keep fishing.

For Washington native Evan Blankenship, tendering has become an essential part of his livelihood.

“I stumbled into fishing and Alaska because of my high school history teacher,” Blankenship shared. “She told stories about working in a remote Alaskan cannery in the 1990s. It sounded like such a wildly different experience from where I grew up.”

In 2006, at age 19, Blankenship headed north to Naknek for his first summer working in a cannery. One season turned into many. He eventually moved from processing to tendering in Bristol Bay, then into salmon seining in Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound before buying his first seine boat in Kodiak in 2015.

Today, his operation splits the summer between Bristol Bay tendering and Kodiak salmon seining, a combination that provides both stability and opportunity.

Blankenship began combining tendering and seining in 2018 after several unpredictable years in Kodiak’s salmon fishery.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

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

ALASKA: Kuskokwim Bay commercial salmon fishery opens after 5-year hiatus

July 30, 2026 — Dozens of ocean-going skiffs have been busy unfurling gill nets along the shores of Kuskokwim Bay. But the catches haven’t been headed to fish camps. Instead, the salmon are quickly bled, put on ice, and offloaded onto vessels bobbing in the waters in front of Quinhagak and Goodnews Bay.

If the fishery is successful, an at-sea processor with hundreds of thousands of pounds of frozen, mostly sockeye, salmon will return to Washington state to bring the catch to market.

According to Larry Strunk, a founding member of the Independent Fishermen of Quinhagak Cooperative, local permit holders could earn upwards of $15,000 each by fishing the openers.

“We have some fishermen that have already been paid over $10,000 this month,” Strunk said.

But as of July 28, Strunk said that diminishing sockeye numbers and logistical issues have spelled the end of this year’s fishery, just three weeks after the Alaska Department of Fish and Game opened it.

Read the full article at KYUK

Opinion: Why targeting one fishery puts Alaska’s seafood economy at risk

July 29, 2026 — Alaska’s commercial fishing economy works because of a simple truth: it is built on interdependence.

Like a three-legged stool, the state’s seafood economy depends on three connected pillars: fishermen who harvest responsibly, processors who transform that harvest into marketable products, and the coastal communities whose infrastructure, workforce, and local economies make it all possible.

Remove any one of those legs, and the entire system becomes unstable. That is why proposals to dismantle major parts of Alaska’s seafood economy are not isolated fishery debates. They are statewide economic questions.

Increasingly, public rhetoric around trawling has been reduced to simplistic slogans and social media talking points that ignore both the scale of Alaska’s seafood economy and the complex systems that sustain it. Some have advanced sweeping calls to “end trawling” without acknowledging what those policies would actually mean for Alaska communities.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Court issues order to disburse USD 152.2 million related to tuna price-fixing lawsuits

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.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US senators call for sanctions on vessels that support China’s distant water fishing fleet

July 28, 2026 — A handful of U.S. senators have asked the Department of the Treasury to issue sanctions on vessels that support China’s distant water fishing fleet, continuing a push from U.S. lawmakers to limit China’s commercial fishing and seafood sectors.

“The Chinese Communist Party is using its global distant-water fleet to conduct ecocide across at least three continents in both hemispheres. They kill endangered species by the hundreds and sharks, whales, and dolphins by the thousands, and have destroyed tens of thousands of acres of coral reefs,” U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a statement. “Their fleet uses coerced laborers, who are subjected to physical abuse, malnutrition, overwork, and withheld pay. They could not conduct these activities without supply ships, including reefers, tankers, and floating bases. The U.S. should bolster our Maritime Domain Awareness capabilities to identify these vessels, and then we should use every available option to sanction and disrupt them.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA holds first-ever international cooperative research gathering

July 28, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries recently held what it is describing as its first-ever international cooperative research knowledge exchange with Scotland.

NOAA hosted 16 members of the Scottish Fishermen’s Association in a three-day event which involved tours of multiple ports, fishing vessels, and seafood processing facilities. The goal of the exchange was to share fisheries knowledge between the two organizations, which share management of multiple fisheries species in the Atlanic including Atlantic cod, Atlantic pollock, haddock, Atlantic mackerel, and Atlantic herring.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

EUSeA regrets exclusion of aquatic foods from EU protein agenda Fisheries and Aquaculture Vision 2040 must deliver an EU Blue Foods Action Plan

July 23, 2026 — The following was released by the The European Union Seafood Alliance:

The European Union Seafood Alliance (EUSeA), bringing together EAPO, Europêche, FEAP, Seafood Europe and EMPA, welcomes the European Commission’s renewed focus on protein resilience, strategic autonomy and sustainable food systems, following the publication of the Action Plan for resilience, strategic autonomy and sustainability of the EU protein system and the EU Strategy on Livestock. Together, these initiatives set an important direction for Europe’s food future. They recognize the need to strengthen resilience, reduce strategic dependencies and support more sustainable food production. However, the EU Seafood Alliance stresses that Europe’s protein strategy will remain incomplete if aquatic foods are not recognized.

Aquatic foods are already available, nutritious and high-quality sources of protein. They contribute to healthy diets, coastal communities, responsible production, processing activities, employment, trade, consumer choice and food-system resilience.

Seafood must be part of Europe’s protein conversation. If the EU wants a resilient, sustainable and strategically autonomous protein system, aquatic foods cannot remain at the margins. Fisheries, aquaculture, processing and trade are part of Europe’s food security and competitiveness agenda.

EUSeA underlines that the recent shift in the Commission’s approach towards livestock is particularly noteworthy¹. Whereas livestock was long considered mainly a source of emissions, it is now recognized as a critical element for Europe’s food security. Fisheries and aquaculture deserve the same strategic recognition.

A genuine paradigm shift is needed – one that sees aquatic food production not as part of the problem, but as an essential contributor to food security, coastal resilience, strategic autonomy and the sustainable management of marine resources. These objectives remain crucial, and the EU protein agenda should therefore ensure stronger coherence between the different Commission services.

EUSeA therefore calls once again for an EU Action Plan for Blue Foods to be fully reflected in the forthcoming Vision for Fisheries and Aquaculture 2040. This Vision should be ambitious and become the Commission’s main strategic framework for recognizing and strengthening the contribution of aquatic foods to Europe’s food system. It should also ensure that aquatic foods are properly integrated into the wider EU protein and livestock agendas, which explicitly exclude fisheries, aquaculture, and their processing sectors despite being an important source and user of protein in the EU’s food and feed system.

We want to ensure that Europe’s food and protein strategy reflects the full diversity of responsible protein sources available to European consumers. The Alliance highlights the potential of making full and responsible use of aquatic biological resources. EU initiatives² demonstrate how fisheries and aquaculture by-products can be transformed into high-value food ingredients, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, biomaterials, packaging, construction materials, water treatment solutions, soil amendments and bio-based fertilizers. They also illustrate the potential to create new value chains for invasive species and species with limited or no commercial demand.

The EU Seafood Alliance stands ready to work with the European Commission in the preparation of the Vision for Fisheries and Aquaculture 2040 and in the implementation of the EU protein and livestock agenda to ensure that Europe’s protein strategy reflects the contribution of all responsible food sectors, including aquatic foods.

Contact EAPO:
Pauline Stephan, Policy Officer

Contact Europêche:
Daniel Voces, Managing Director

Contact FEAP:
Javier Ojeda, General Secretary

Contact Seafood Europe:
Katarina Sipic, Secretary General

Contact the European Mollusc Producers’ Association (EMPA):
Thibault Pivetta, Secretary General

About EAPO, EMPA, Europêche, FEAP and Seafood Europe

EAPO, EMPA, Europêche, FEAP and Seafood Europe represent key parts of the European fisheries, aquaculture, seafood processing and trading value chain. Together, they work to promote responsible seafood production and trade, support resilient coastal and food systems, and advocate for policies that strengthen sustainable growth, food security and competitiveness across the European seafood sector.