Saving Seafood

MAINE: Maine lobstermen push to expand restricted fishing zone

July 28, 2026 — Small-scale lobstermen fishing out of Jonesport, Beals and Jonesboro are backing a proposal to expand a protected fishing zone in Englishman Bay, aiming to keep buoyed gear clear of long commercial trawls.

The Lobster Zone A Council voted unanimously last week to advance the plan, which would push the boundary of a restricted area 3 miles farther out to federal waters on its western edge, while leaving the eastern border unchanged, The Maine Monitor reported. Under current rules established in a 2011 agreement, the zone limits fishermen to buoyed lines carrying up to four traps; the new proposal would allow up to five traps per line inside the expanded area.

The change would also bar vessels running heavier gear — trawls of 10 to 20 traps anchored with large balloons — from fishing the expanded western zone.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

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

ALASKA: With Western Alaska salmon runs weak, managers set limits on the pollock fleet’s chum bycatch

February 17, 2026 –Federal fishery managers have approved the first-ever mandatory caps on at-sea interception of chum salmon, a fish species critical to Indigenous communities along Alaska’s river systems.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council on Wednesday voted in favor of new limits for the pollock fleet to reduce the amount of chum salmon accidentally caught in trawl nets, a phenomenon known as bycatch.

The compromise, approved at the end of a 10-day council meeting, addresses a yearslong conflict that pitted the in-river salmon fishermen and their Indigenous cultures against the economically important harvesters of Alaska pollock, the top-volume U.S. commercial seafood.

Achieving effective safeguards for Western Alaska chum salmon while balancing needs of all parties amid environmental factors that are out of managers’ control was difficult, Angel Drobnica, the council’s chair, said just before the vote was taken.

“This is the most challenging issue I’ve worked on during my time in this process,” she said, referring to her three years on the full council and six years on the group’s advisory panel. “I believe this motion is durable and enforceable and reflective of input from both sides and has maintained a clear focus on Western Alaska salmon.”

Salmon bycatch is a hot-button issue in Alaska fisheries. Total amounts of chum salmon accidentally caught in the trawl nets used by the pollock fleet can number in the hundreds of thousands — though the vast majority of the chum salmon intercepted in the Bering Sea in this manner is not of Alaska origin, according to council data.

While bycatch limits have been in place for several years for Chinook salmon, this is the first time managers have imposed limits for chum salmon. Both Pacific salmon species are important to the Yukon and Kuskokwim river system communities, and both have collapsed in recent years, at times prompting complete fishing closures all the way into Canada’s Yukon Territory.

Read the full article at the Alaska Beacon

Judge rules NOAA must release bycatch photos from trawlers

November 4, 2025 — A federal judge in California has ordered NOAA to release photos, videos and other visual data documenting the catch of nontargeted species by the state’s halibut trawl fishery.

In a ruling, Judge Josephine Staton of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California told NOAA to release 77 photographs to the environmental group Oceana detailing the bycatch of fish and marine mammals caught up in nets used by bottom trawlers off the California coast.

Oceana had requested the photos in 2022 under a public records request, but NOAA declined to provide them, citing an exemption where the release of documents violates nondisclosure provisions in federal law. NOAA argued that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act prohibited the release of the photos because doing so could identify the identities of fisheries observers whose identities were to be kept private.

Read the full article at E&E News

NORTH CAROLINA: A 38-year research project in Pamlico Sound ends with fisheries boat breakdown

August 27, 2025 — Nearly four decades of research ended this year because a dwindling budget in the state Division of Marine Fisheries left its research boat out of commission.

Scientists have trawled the Pamlico Sound netting fish and crustaceans since 1987.

But the boat, named the Carolina Coast, won’t go out in 2025.

“This is the end of the data set. There’s nothing we can do about that. It’s over,” said Kathy Rawls, who directs the Division of Marine Fisheries.

Rawls broke the news about the rotting and leaking 41-year-old boat last week to the Marine Fisheries Commission, a policy-setting board appointed by the governor.

“We lack the resources to repair or replace the vessel,” she said. “As you can imagine, that is a huge blow.”

Doug Rader, an oceans scientist serving on the commission, said the news is “close to catastrophic.”

Read the full article at WUNC

NORTH CAROLINA: Shrimp trawling ban in NC sounds dies in the state House, Republicans say

June 25, 2025 — North Carolina House Republicans won’t take up a bill that would ban shrimp trawling in North Carolina sounds, they said Wednesday — a decision met with jubilation from shrimpers in the Legislative Building.

Republican Rep. Mitchell Setzer, the House speaker pro tempore, confirmed the decision with The News & Observer.

House Bill 442 was revised early last week to include an amendment banning trawling within a half-mile of the coast. Before the amendment, the bill originally sought to expand fishing seasons for flounder and red snapper.

Read the full article at The News and Observer

New trawl net to cut costs and boost survey accuracy

May 29, 2025 — A collaborative sea trial aboard NOAA’s vessel Bell M. Shimada has set the stage for a more efficient and cost-effective approach to fishery surveys on the West Coast.

Fishing industry leaders joined NOAA Fisheries scientists in testing an innovative new trawl net designed to gather more accurate data in less time and at lower cost.

Developed in partnership with industry experts, the Multi-Function Trawl (MFT) net is engineered to combine two separate West Coast fisheries surveys that had previously relied on different nets. The Adjustable design allows a single vessel to “more safely gather more data in less time and at lower cost,” according to NOAA.

“The new trawl, which uses the same design features and technologies used by many fishermen, increases our confidence in the survey results,” Greg Shaughnessy, chief operating officer at Ocean Gold Seafoods in Westport, Washington, said. Shaughnessy, a long-time industry collaborator, became interested in the survey process after observing the sudden decline of sardines off the Northwest Coast in 2015. “I needed to understand how these surveys work,” he recalled. “You have to have the best available science to get the management right.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

OPINION: Safeguarding Alaska offshore habitat and providing a path forward for trawling

September 27, 2024 — As commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, I often hear concerns about the impacts of trawl gear used in Alaska’s pollock fisheries, most recently related to potential unobserved mortality of crabs and halibut in the Bering Sea. We know that pelagic trawls fishing for Alaska pollock are often operated close to, or in contact with, the seafloor. What we do not know is the extent of this contact or the potential impacts on bottom-dwelling species like crab and halibut and their habitat. These data gaps are concerning to Alaskans, and I want to highlight actions underway to understand and address the unintended consequences on seafloor ecosystems in areas that fishery managers and stakeholders have recognized as needing protection.

Alaska’s marine fisheries are universally recognized as a shining example of both bounty and sustainability. About 60% of domestically caught U.S. seafood comes from Alaska. Science-based management by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, North Pacific Fishery Management Council, and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proven to be the key to ensuring that Alaska’s fisheries continue to support good jobs, vibrant fishing communities and a healthy food supply for generations to come. But fishery management must be adaptive to changing biological and economic conditions, and declines in crab, halibut and other important stocks in recent years have heightened concerns about the impacts of bottom trawling.

When considering trawl fisheries, it’s important to distinguish between bottom trawls and pelagic trawls used in the pollock fishery. As the name implies, bottom trawls are specifically designed to catch fish at or near the seafloor. Pelagic trawls are designed to fish higher than bottom trawls and are typically used to target a single species. The best available information indicates that bottom trawls have a greater impact on seafloor habitat than pelagic trawls, and ADF&G, the Council and NMFS have closed large areas of the ocean off Alaska to bottom trawling to minimize these impacts. That said, some key species such as scallops can only be fished with bottom fishing gear.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

CT innovator IDs illegal trawlers with AI and ears in the ocean

August 14, 2023 — With millions of dollars from venture capital investors, a Connecticut startup that emerged from the submarine industry is using artificial intelligence to pioneer new underwater technology, from tracking illegal fishing to protecting whales during construction of offshore wind farms.

Miles off the U.S. coast, Groton-based ThayerMahan is readying a nautical network of buoys and roaming sea drones to ID commercial fishing trawlers that may be operating illegally, whether in U.S. territorial waters or those of other nations where catch limits are abused routinely to put pressure on fish stocks.

Closer to home in partnership with Hydrotechnik-Luebeck based in Germany, ThayerMahan is assisting offshore wind developers with a system to “bubble wrap” wind turbine monopiles with curtains of sound-absorbing bubbles, in an effort to minimize disruptions for whales and other marine life. ThayerMahan is tracking whale positions to determine if any are swimming too close to turbine construction sites and is helping wind farm developers comply with federal environmental rules.

Mike Connor retired as a vice admiral overseeing the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet to start ThayerMahan in 2016, seeing the need for a startup that could develop a networked system of underwater sensors to help the Navy identify vessels. Connor named the company for the naval power theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who was a major influence in the global naval buildup preceding World War I.

Read the full article at ctpost

Op-ed: What science says about the sustainability of trawling

September 26, 2022 — Ray Hilborn is a professor in School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington.

With the launch of several recent advocacy campaigns, bottom-trawling is squarely in the crosshairs of some environmental groups and media outlets that regurgitate their press releases.

There is no question that bottom-trawling has environmental impacts, as all food production does, but there is misinformation floating around about the true impact of bottom-trawling, especially in comparison to other types of fishing and food production. With campaigns like #BanBottomTrawling growing, I want to look at what the science says about the sustainability of bottom-trawling.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource