Saving Seafood

Appeals court rules against Maine lobster industry in lawsuit targeting Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation

October 13, 2026 — A U.S. Appeals Court has ruled against the Maine lobster industry in a lawsuit it brought against the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation (MBAF).

A coalition of Maine lobstermen, including Bean Maine Lobster Inc., the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, Atwood Lobster LLC, and Bug Catcher Inc., had won a lawsuit against the MBAF over its decision to give the fishery a “red” rating in its seafood watch list. The aquarium foundation appealed that lawsuit, and now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision, remanding it with instructions to dismiss the complaint entirely.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Appeals court dismisses Maine lobstermen defamation case against California aquarium

October 12, 2026 — A federal appeals court has sided with the California-based Monterey Bay Aquarium, which faced a defamation lawsuit from Maine lobstermen and groups representing the state’s industry.

The lobstermen sued three years ago, after the aquarium’s Seafood Watch program stripped the U.S. and Canadian lobster fisheries of their sustainability certifications and urged consumers not to buy lobster.

The aquarium said the fishery poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Diversifying the catch seen as more important than ever for Maine’s fishery

February 23, 2022 — While lobster dominates Maine’s seafood economy, threats to the industry suggest that improving the diversity of the state’s seafood production is an important solution to consider.

The lobster catch in Maine broke a record last year at $725 million, up more than $312 million from 2020. But concerns about the future of the industry are looming with new regulations that have been imposed to protect right whales.

More concern surfaced when the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, based in California, said it is considering adding the North American lobster to its “red list,” which means Maine’s lobster fishery would lose its sustainability label.

The preliminary report on the American lobster, which questions the impact lobster traps have on right whales in the Gulf of Maine, remains under consideration and is open to public comment through the end of March.

Maine’s lobster fishery is currently rated “yellow,” meaning it’s OK to buy, but consumers should be aware of “concerns” regarding how the product is caught or managed.

Read the full story at the Portland Phoenix

Maine lobster at risk of losing a sustainability label over right whale concerns

February 22, 2022 — Maine’s lobster fishery is at risk of losing a key sustainability label over concerns for the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Industry members, meanwhile, say the idea that Maine’s lobster fishery poses an environmental threat is nonsensical.

The California-based Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program is considering which species to add to its “red list,” and North American lobster from both the U.S. and Canadian fisheries is a candidate, as are over a dozen other species fished up and down the East Coast, according to a draft assessment.

Seafood Watch, which is designed to help consumers make informed choices about sustainable seafood, rates fisheries as green for “best choice,” yellow for “good alternative” and red for “avoid.”

Industries on the program’s red list are “overfished, lack strong management or are caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment,” according to Seafood Watch.

It’s the latter reason that the program may urge consumers to steer clear of the state’s lobster fishery, which landed a record-value catch of $725 million in 2021. Trap-caught Maine lobster already has been downgraded to yellow status, but Seafood Watch representatives declined to answer questions about when the change occurred or when the fishery might be downgraded to red.

Read the full story and listen to the audio at The Portland Press Herald

 

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program reduces staff

April 27, 2020 — The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program has “substantially” reduced its workforce through furloughs and layoffs, according to a 27 April press release from the aquarium.

The Seafood Watch program maintains a set of standards by which it ranks the environmental sustainability of the world’s fisheries. It also produces a consumer guide in which it ranks fisheries via a three-tiered system: Green, or “Best Choice” seafood, which has minimal adverse impacts on the environment; Yellow, or “Good Alternative” seafood, which are good options when “Best Choices” aren’t available; and Red, or seafood to “Avoid,” meaning the seafood is not sourced using environmentally responsible means.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

No longer enemies: Industry embracing partnerships with NGOs

April 15, 2019 — There was a time when many in the seafood industry openly disliked the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And not long ago, the aquarium’s Seafood Watch program didn’t think very highly of much commercially-produced seafood, such as the equivalent of the industry’s bread and butter – farmed salmon. As recently as 2013, Seafood Watch advised its millions of sustainability-conscious adherents to avoid farmed salmon altogether.

But a month ago, at the 2019 Seafood Expo North America event, Jennifer Kemmerly, Monterey Bay Aquarium’s director of global fisheries and aquaculture, stood on stage at a special assembly hosted by the Chilean Salmon Marketing Council and declared that previous era of combativeness to be over.

“There is no ‘us-versus-them’ mentality anymore,” she said. “There’s no time or room for that. The only way to get the job done is to work together.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Sailors for the Sea takes new approach to seafood sustainability in Japan

December 5, 2018 — Ryan Bigelow, the senior program manager for Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, sees Japan as a country ripe for seafood sustainability ratings like those his program provides.

Japan’s population consumes a vast amount of seafood – collectively, the country has one of the largest seafood consumption footprints in the world (third behind China and the European Union) – and because of that, an improvement in the overall sustainability of the seafood sold and eaten in Japan can have a major impact.

Seafood Watch’s Buyers Guide, which gives seafood either a “best choice,” a “good alternative”, or “avoid” recommendation to seafood commonly found in supermarkets, is well-known in the United States. (Its ratings are color-coded green, yellow, and red, similar to the colors found in traffic signals.)

The guide is tailored to each U.S. state in order to give recommendations relevant to the seafood available there. They can be downloaded in PDF form on a single page and easily folded into a wallet or pocketbook.

But Bigelow openly acknowledges that Japanese consumers are not familiar with Seafood Watch’s guides.

“We don’t promote our program there,” he told SeafoodSource.

Still, for the fourth consecutive year, Bigelow attended the Tokyo Sustainable Seafood Symposium, which took place at Iino Hall and Conference Center on 1 November. Initiated in 2015, the annual event brings together Japanese professionals involved in the seafood industry to discuss issues surrounding smarter management of global fisheries resources. The all-day program featured a wide range of speakers and panelists.

“We attend the symposium to share our experiences advocating for more sustainable seafood in North America, both our successes and our failures,” Bigelow said. “Hopefully, that knowledge allows the sustainable seafood movement in Japan to grow more quickly and avoid some of the issues we encountered over the last 20 years.”

According to Bigelow, the closest parallel to the Seafood Watch Buyers Guide in Japan is the Sailors for the Sea Blue Seafood Guide.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Monterey Bay campaign targets new lawmakers, but MSA bill not only focus

November 2, 2018 — The Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of multiple ocean conservation groups opposed to a bill that would update the Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA), won’t waste any time in its efforts to influence new US members of Congress. It has launched a chefs-oriented campaign intended to begin reaching lawmakers the day after the Nov. 6 election, Undercurrent News has learned.

The advocacy group, which runs the Seafood Watch sustainability initiative, held a meeting on Oct. 24 in Portland, Oregon, where it got chefs to discuss, finalize and sign a “Portland Pact for Sustainable Seafood”. The document calls on “the new Congress to prioritize the long-term health of US fish stocks by protecting the strong conservation measures of the [MSA]”, reveals an email sent by Sheila Bowman, Seafood Watch manager of culinary and strategic initiatives, a copy of which was obtained by Undercurrent.

The email requested recipients to sign an attached copy of the document before Nov. 1, joining “other Blue Ribbon Task Force chefs”, but not to share it with anyone until Nov. 7. By signing the letter, the chefs would be agreeing with Monterey Bay Aquarium and its #ChefsForFish campaign that US commercial fishing policy would be best served by:

  • “Requiring management decisions be science-based;
  • “Avoiding overfishing with catch limits and tools that hold everyone accountable for the fish that they remove from the ocean; and
  • “Ensuring the timely recovery of depleted fish stocks.”

“On November 7: We will send another email asking you to help spread the word so that we can gather more chef signatures,” Bowman instructs in her email. “Our hope is to have hundreds of chefs representing all 50 states!”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Red Lobster Expands Sustainability Efforts with Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program Partners

May 17, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Red Lobster announced on Tuesday that they have formed a partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program.

The Seafood Watch program is part of an initiative to “improve the sustainability of global fisheries and aquaculture, through policy leadership, scientific research, industry partnerships and consumer engagement.” Red Lobster’s partnership with the program is part of the seafood restaurant’s mission to help “make better seafood choices for healthier oceans, now and for future generations.”

The partnership comes just a few months after the restaurant chain launched their Seafood with Standards platform, which focuses on sourcing high quality seafood in a manner that is traceable, sustainable and responsible.

This story was originally published on Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

Massachusetts: Cape Cod waters yield valuable product for fishermen, Whole Foods

May 11, 2018 — Longtime commercial fisherman Greg Walinski stopped fishing with longlines for awhile, but now he’s back.

“I got back into it this winter thanks to Whole Foods,” the Yarmouth resident told a roomful of Whole Foods employees at the grocery chain’s headquarters in Marlborough. About 50 people who manage seafood sales in stores across the Northeast had gathered for a day-long conference.

Walinski was one of four fishermen who made the trip (in his case after fishing more than 16 hours the day before) to meet the people who sell and promote the fish they catch.

The partnership of local fishermen and Whole Foods, brokered with help from the Fishermen’s Alliance, is a hopeful model for the future.

Whole Foods, whose motto is “Whole Foods, Whole People,Whole Planet,” made a decision to only sell fish that meet stringent “Seafood Watch” criteria. The rating system started in the 1990s, had its beginnings in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Fishing for Solutions exhibit, and is designed to help people make good decisions about what they buy.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Wicked Local