Saving Seafood

Lobster boats must keep using tracking devices for government observation, court rules

November 21, 2025 — The U.S. government can continue requiring America’s lobster fishing boats to use electronic tracking devices to collect data, a federal appeals court has ruled, denying claims by some in the industry that the monitoring amounts to unreasonable search and seizure.

Fishing regulators began requiring federally permitted lobstermen to install electronic tracking devices that transmit location data in late 2023. The data improves understanding of the lobster population and can inform future rules, authorities said.

The tracking devices transmit lobster boat locations using an onboard global positioning system and must be used whenever a vessel is in the water, including when it’s docked or being operated for personal use, court records state.

A group of lobster fishermen sued, claiming the tracking requirements are unconstitutional, but a federal district court rejected that claim and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston upheld the ruling Tuesday.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

US Court of Appeals considering Monterey Bay Aquarium effort to appeal Maine lobster rating lawsuit

October 9, 2025 — The U.S. Court of Appeals has agreed to hear an appeal by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation (MBAF) regarding a defamation lawsuit launched against it by the Maine lobster industry.

Several members of the Maine lobster industry – including Bean Maine Lobster Inc., the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, Atwood Lobster LLC, and Bug Catcher Inc., owned by Gerry Cushman, a sixth-generation fisherman from Port Clyde, Maine, U.S.A. – along with the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) sued the MBAF over the foundation’s “red” listing of lobster.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump’s tariffs back in court

July 31, 2025 — An appeals court may soon get in the way of President Trump’s trade agenda as his Aug. 1 deadline approaches to impose so-called ‘reciprocal’ duties on a host of countries.

One day ahead of that deadline, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will convene across the street from the White House to decide whether the bulk of  Trump’s tariffs are legal.

Hanging in the balance at Thursday’s oral argument is whether Trump can use an emergency law to justify his sweeping reciprocal tariffs on countries globally and a series of specific levies on Canada, China and Mexico.

The Constitution vests Congress with the power to impose tariffs, so Trump can’t act unless lawmakers delegated him authority.

Trump points to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that authorizes the president to impose necessary economic sanctions during an emergency to combat an “unusual and extraordinary threat.” Trump is the first president to attempt to leverage IEEPA to impose tariffs

Read the full article at The Hill

Court rules against feds in charterboat case

December 4, 2023 — There are enough federally permitted charterboat operations in Louisiana to warrant attention from the latest ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The ruling turns aside a U.S. Department of Commerce regulation which demanded these charterboat operators install a constant (24-hour) GPS tracking device on their vessels and report what opponents considered to be “confidential economic data” to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance took up the cause for the Mexican Gulf Fishing Company, et al. (meaning more than 1,300 federally permitted charterboat operations) in a plea to the courts to have the requirement declared unconstitutional on a violation of the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

Read the full story at The Advocate

Navy’s submarine hunts are too disturbing for marine life, California court rules

July 20, 2016 — They came as a wave, some 150 to 200 melon-headed whales churning into Hawaii’s Hanalei Bay like a single mass. It was a strange sight for the Kauai islanders to behold. Melon-headed whales live in the deep ocean, feasting on squid. But here they were, swimming in the shallows no more than 100 feet from shore.

Over the course of July 3 and 4, 2004, volunteers and rescuers shepherded the animals back to sea, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s account of the mass stranding. The Washington Post reported at the time that it was the largest event of its kind in 150 years of Hawaiian history. Almost all the whales made it back out into the open water. But not the entire pod.

A young calf, split off from the rest of the herd, perished the next day.

A year later, 34 whales died when they were stranded at North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Three years after that and half the world away, 100 melon-headed whales were again stranded en masse, this time on the shores of Madagascar. The reasons why whales beach themselves are not always clear — strandings have been likened to car crashes in that the causes are myriad but the conclusion is never good. With the melon-headed whales, however, something was different. The events were unusual enough, and involved such large numbers, to prompt scrutiny. In both cases, a prime suspect emerged: sonar.

Controversy over these sound waves continues today. And in the latest skirmish over oceanic noise pollution, a victory went to the whales. On Friday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the Navy violated marine mammal protection laws, reversing a lower court’s decision that allowed military vessels to use a type of loud, low-frequency sonar approved in 2012.

Read the full story at the Washington Post