Saving Seafood

Pacific halibut catches declined this year

December 9, 2025 — The Pacific halibut fishery ended on Dec. 7, and by all accounts, things remained on a stagnant trend. Stakeholders are dealing with the fallout from the lowest Pacific halibut spawning biomass in 40 years, and harvesters widely reported catches of fewer and smaller fish.

The annual survey conducted since 1963 by the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) revealed little change in the halibut stock that stretches from Alaska’s northern Bering Sea, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon to California’s Monterey Bay.

By early December, coast-wide commercial landings of halibut totaled 16.7 million pounds, down 16 percent from the same time last year and reflecting just  80 percent of the allowable catch limit in 2025.

According to a report by the IPHC at its interim meeting on December 2, total halibut takes (called mortalities) from all sectors – commercial, sport, personal use, and subsistence – were 28.8 million pounds, down 12% from last year, and marking the lowest removals in 100 years.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NOAA awards over $26.4 M for marine debris removal

December 9, 2025 — Thirteen new projects have been funded for over $26.4 million under the NOAA Marine Debris Program, with a focus on abandoned and derelict vessels and fishing gear, and the use of proven debris interception technologies.

Recipients of the funding announced on Dec. 4 by the NOAA Marine Debris Program for fiscal year 2025 included nine for large-scale marine debris cleanup and four using debris technologies.

Pacific Coastal Research & Planning, a small non-profit in the Northern Mariana Islands, was allocated $4.9 million to remove 23 abandoned boats and an estimated 40,000 pounds of derelict fishing gear from the coastal environments of the U.S. Territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, and the Freely Associated States of the Republic of Palau and Federated States of Micronesia.

Washington’s Department of Natural Resources received $3.5 million for removal of four large, run-down, and abandoned boats from the coastal and marine waters of Washington State and tidally influenced areas of the Columbia River. These former military vessels were abandoned by their new owners and now pose serious risks to Washington’s waterways, according to NOAA.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Counting salmon is a breeze with airborne eDNA

December 1, 2025 — During the annual salmon run last fall, University of Washington researchers pulled salmon DNA out of thin air and used it to estimate the number of fish that passed through the adjacent river. Aden Yincheong Ip, a UW research scientist of marine and environmental affairs, began formulating the driving hypothesis for the study while hiking on the Olympic Peninsula.

“I saw the fish jumping and the water splashing and I started thinking — could we recover their genetic material from the air?,” he said.

The researchers placed air filters at several sites on Issaquah Creek, near the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery in Washington. To their amazement, the filters captured Coho salmon DNA, even 10 to 12 feet from the river. Scientists collect environmental DNA, or eDNA, to identify species living in or passing through an area, but few have attempted to track aquatic species by sampling air.

This study, published Nov. 26 in Scientific Reports, shows that eDNA can move between air and water — a possibility scientists hadn’t accounted for even though aquatic animal DNA sometimes appears in airborne study data.

The researchers then merged air and water eDNA with the hatchery’s visual counts in a model to track how salmon numbers rose and fell during the fall migration. Although the amount of salmon DNA in the air was 25,000 times less than what was observed in the water, its concentration still varied with observed migratory trends.

“This work is at the edge of what is possible with eDNA,” said senior author Ryan Kelly, a UW professor of marine and environmental affairs and director of the eDNA Collaborative. “It pushes the boundaries way further than I thought we could.”

Read the full article at UW News

OREGON: Oregon delays Dungeness crab season after Washington testing falls short

November 25, 2025 — Officials in the U.S. state of Oregon have decided to delay the state’s commercial Dungeness crab season by at least two weeks, despite preseason testing showing that the state’s crabs met the regulatory threshold for meat recovery.

In a 21 November announcement, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) declared that it would be pushing back the season opening from 1 December to 16 December due to testing in Long Beach, Washington, the only site to show lower meat recovery levels.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

OREGON: Commercial Dungeness season delayed until at least Dec. 16, ODFW announces Friday, to wait for Washington improvements

November 24, 2025 — Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab season is delayed coastwide until at least Dec. 16, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Friday.

Dungeness crab along the Oregon coast met both meat and safe biotoxin level requirements, however the ODFW said the season will be delayed as crab tested in the Long Beach, Wash. area have not yet met the meat fill requirement.

In a news release Friday, the ODFW said most Dungeness crab advisory committee members supported the delay as it is least disruptive to traditional fishing patterns and may improve market conditions. The tension comes because if the Washington season is closed and the Oregon season is open, then Washington crabbers with permits for both states move their operations to the north Oregon coast, putting extra pressure on the fishery.

Read the full article at KLCC

WASHINGTON: Washington crabbers hope for a December start

November 19, 2025 — As crews along Washington’s coast splice rope, paint buoys, and stack their pots, the region’s commercial crab fleet is once again preparing for what the Chinook Observer calls the most prized fishery in the Pacific Northwest. According to an article published by the Observer on Nov. 16, the official start to the 2025 Washington commercial Dungeness crab season could come as early as Dec. 1 if the preseason test results for meat recovery and domoic acid meet the criteria.

The first round of tests delivered mixed results. Long Beach came close, but at 20.9 percent recovery on Nov. 3, it fell just shy of the 23 percent threshold required along the Washington and north Oregon Coasts. Other major test sites performed well above the cutoff: Astoria at 26.4 percent, Westport at 25 percent, and Garibaldi at 27.1 percent.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

WASHINGTON: Upper Skagit Indian Tribe celebrates huge rebound of Baker River sockeye

October 17, 2025 — Nearly 92,000 sockeye salmon returned to the Baker River this year. That’s a historic milestone for nearby tribes, state wildlife officials and the hydroelectric utility that caused the decline — and helped bring the fish back.

Scott Schuyler, the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe’s policy representative for cultural natural resources, has been watching the fish run for more than 40 years.

“We basically lost this run,” said Schuyler, a tribal member and elder. “Back in 1985 the run went down to 80-ish or so fish, which is basically extinct. And it was due to hydropower that caused their demise, and it was hydropower that helped fix the run to get to where we are today.”

Schuyler said the tribe once had a fishing village called S.báliuqʷ (pronounced ‘sih-’BALL’-ih-QUE’) on Baker Lake.

“That’s where people lived and died and fished and hunted since time immemorial,” he said.

Read the full article at KNKX

WASHINGTON: WA pink salmon populations surge in some Puget Sound areas, stagnant in others

September 10, 2025 — The Puget Sound region is anticipating a substantial increase in pink salmon returns for 2025, with forecasts predicting a total of 7.76 million fish. This figure represents a 70% rise from the 10-year cycle average and is expected to be the third-largest return on record. However, some populations, like the Chinook salmon stocks, are expected to limit some salmon fisheries in the upcoming season.

The forecast marks a significant improvement from the 2023 prediction of 3.95 million, with the actual return reaching 7.22 million. The Green and Nisqually rivers are expected to see strong pink salmon returns, further contributing to the region’s positive outlook.

Dig deeper: The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has responded to the promising forecast by increasing the daily limit for pink salmon in all inner-marine areas through Sept. 30 to two additional pinks. Marine Area 8–2 remains closed due to the Stillaguamish River’s inability to meet spawning escapement goals.

Read the full article at FOX 13

US FDA recalls more shrimp after discovering radioactive contaminant

August 22, 2025 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced a voluntary recall of frozen shrimp products due to possible contamination with Cesium-137 (Cs-137), a man-made radioisotope that can elevate cancer risks through longer term, repeated low dose exposure.

The announcement comes shortly after U.S. Customs and Border Control (CBP) detected Cs-137 in shipping containers at the Ports of Los Angeles, Houston, Savannah, and Miami, with agents finding evidence of the radioisotope in a single shipment of frozen bread shrimp. The discovery led the FDA to issue an alert for frozen shrimp supplied by Indonesia-based PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati to Walmart and sold under the “Great Value” brand name.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Trump revokes agreement to protect salmon

July 28, 2025 —A September 2023 presidential memorandum of understanding (MOU) from the Biden administration called for the elimination of four Snake River dams that the MOU said contributed to the near extinction of 13 salmon and steelhead fish populations that return each year to the Columbia Basin from the Pacific Ocean to spawn.

Supporters of the Biden MOU say the fish are important to local tribal health and sovereignty and to basin ecosystems, and the declines are affecting southern resident orcas off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. The orcas eat the salmon.

The 2023 agreement was between the federal government and four Lower Columbia River tribes — Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, and the Nez Perce Tribe, as well as the states of Oregon and Washington. The tribes want the dams removed.

Opponents argue that the dams support river navigation for maritime barge operations, passenger vessels, irrigation, and emissions-free hydropower for nearby communities and should be maintained.

Read the full article at WorkBoat