Saving Seafood

Missing whales are a sign that ecosystems in the Gulf of California are struggling, scientists say

March 4, 2026 — Three pairs of binoculars poke out between baseball caps and balaclavas in the middle of the Gulf of California.

A trio of Mexican scientists are looking toward the watery blue horizon for clues. Sperm whales haven’t been spotted here for years, and fin whales and dolphins aren’t as plentiful. Those that do turn up are more likely to appear malnourished or ill.

This vital ecosystem is struggling, scientists say, if Earth’s largest living creatures are any indication.

“Marine mammals, and specifically cetaceans, are considered the sentinels of health of the marine ecosystem,” said Hector Pérez Puig. He studies cetaceans, the broad category that includes whales and dolphins, at the Prescott College Kino Bay Center in Bahía de Kino on the Sonoran coast.

Read the full article at KJZZ

West Coast Waters Experiencing Another Large Marine Heatwave

March 4, 2026 — A massive marine heatwave has dominated waters off the West Coast since last summer. This marks only the third time on record that such a large section of the coastal ocean has remained so warm for so long—particularly into winter months—without it being an El Niño, NOAA scientists report. NOAA Fisheries and our partners are tracking possible heatwave impacts, which can include harmful algal blooms that can sicken marine mammals and close shellfish fisheries.

Third Time as Warm

At one point last September, the current marine heatwave rivaled the enormous 2013–2016 marine heatwave known as “The Blob” in terms of size and surface temperatures. The current heatwave has raised the temperature of waters along the West Coast roughly 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. On September 9, 2025, the northeast Pacific reached its highest ever average temperature of 20.6 degrees Celsius, or about 69 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s almost a half-degree warmer than ever before. Past marine heatwaves shook up marine ecosystems that drove shifts of species, die-offs, and other disruptions of ecosystems in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.

“We have forecast tools that provide some insight, but we are also watching carefully for implications on the marine ecosystem,” said Andrew Leising, a research oceanographer at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center. He runs the California Current Marine Heatwave Tracker. The tracker has been documenting marine heatwaves off the West Coast through NOAA data from satellites, ships, and buoys since 2019.

The North Pacific has repeatedly hit record or near-record temperatures since The Blob. Like others before it, the current marine heatwave weakened and receded from the coast in October and November 2025. Unlike others, it has since strengthened and returned. “We’re in La Niña, but water temperatures along our coast look much different,” Leising said. “The conditions are hard to reconcile. We want to be cautious in our interpretation, but at the same time this is not a situation that we have seen before.”

Heatwaves Shift Species

The current heatwave has brought news of species in unusual areas, such as tunas caught in large numbers in Alaska last fall. The Blob and other marine heatwaves have been shown to reduce the survival of salmon in the ocean, leaving fewer fish to catch and to return to rivers to spawn. “We know these marine heatwaves alter ecosystem conditions, which affects fish and other marine life,” Leising said. “We’re very interested in what the fishing fleet and others who are out on the water are seeing and are looking into new ways to collect this information. Are there species in unusual places, or what might be changing?”

In addition, the unusual warmth could begin to set the stage for a repeat of last year’s harmful algal bloom off Southern California. It hit unusually early in 2025 and killed hundreds of California sea lions, dolphins, and seabirds. Harmful algal blooms can also close fisheries, especially recreational fisheries involving shellfish that concentrate the toxins, affecting the coastal economy.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Emergency Groundfish Rule Keeps Fleet Fishing as Species Prove More Abundant

February 3, 2026 — The West Coast groundfish fleet will benefit from a new emergency rule increasing catch limits for three key species that have proved more abundant than previously thought. West Coast groundfish make up the largest fishery by volume on the West Coast. The decision provides greater opportunity for the fishery, supplying more domestic seafood for the country.

The rule change improves the competitiveness of the groundfish fleet by increasing catch limits for each of the three species by about 10 percent. The fishery has rebounded from a collapse about 25 years ago to reclaim their place in the nation’s seafood counters.

NOAA Fisheries issued the emergency rule issued this week. It raises the catch limits for shortspine thornyhead, canary rockfish and petrale sole to reflect updated projections showing that larger volumes of the species are available. The higher limits will give the fleet greater flexibility to continue fishing for these and other important species such as Pacific hake or whiting, while ensuring the catch remains sustainable.

“We are undertaking this emergency action to change our regulations based on this new information,” said Ryan Wulff, assistant regional administrator in NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. “We looked at the science and it told us the picture had changed, so we are acting as quickly as possible to provide more opportunities for our fleet.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Pacific halibut catch declines as spawning biomass reaches lowest point in 40 years

December 12, 2025 — The most recent Pacific halibut fishing season ended on 7 December, and preliminary data shows that commercial landings across the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada are down.

By early December, coastwide commercial landings of halibut totaled 16.7 million pounds, down 16 percent from the same time last year and reaching just 80 percent of the allowable catch limit for the season.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NOAA cuts back on seismic data used for West Coast tsunami alerts

November 12, 2025 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ended a contract with the Alaska Earthquake Center that helped maintain some seismic stations and transmit data in real time.

Alaska state seismologist and director of the center, Michael West, warned that the termination of this contract, which is around two decades old, will lead to less timely and accurate tsunami warnings that could affect Alaska, Hawaii and the West Coast.

It’s unclear why NOAA chose to terminate the contract, worth around $300,000 annually. David Snider, a tsunami warning coordinator with NOAA’s National Tsunami Warning Center, declined to comment, deferring to NOAA public affairs, which did not respond to request for comment.

Every time an earthquake happens, NOAA’s Tsunami Warning Centers determine whether to issue a tsunami alert within five minutes. Depending on where the earthquake originated, coastal communities could have anywhere from 20 minutes to six hours to evacuate or prepare for a tsunami.

Read the full article at The Columbian

NOAA Fisheries establishes task force to address West Coast humpback whale entanglements

November 4, 2025 — NOAA Fisheries has established a federal task force to address the problem of humpback whales becoming entangled in commercial fishing gear along the west coast.

The announcement came just prior to a 31 October deadline set by the courts in response to a lawsuit brought by conservation NGO the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). The group sued NOAA Fisheries in 2022, claiming the agency’s sablefish fishery permit didn’t incorporate any plans to reduce entanglements or harm to the endangered whales. In 2023, NOAA Fisheries signed a legal agreement as part of a settlement, committing to create a task force by 31 October 2025.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Fishery managers worry about effects of NOAA cuts

March 4, 2025 — The long term impacts of recent staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are still unknown, but fishery managers on the West Coast called the situation troubling.

On Thursday, NOAA laid off more than 800 workers as the Trump administration continues its push to reduce the federal workforce.

West Coast lawmakers have warned that the cuts — and the potential for more layoffs in the future — could endanger lives and threaten maritime commerce and the fishing industry. NOAA manages federal tribal, commercial and recreational fisheries and includes the National Weather Service, which provides weather forecast data.

For West Coast fisheries, the firings have created uncertainty for fishery management now.

This week, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a quasi-governmental body that recommends management measures for a number of fisheries on the West Coast, will meet to begin — among other things — the process of setting summer and fall salmon fisheries.

Read the full article at KMUN

Council appointments delayed until ‘later this summer’

July 3, 2024 — Alaskan and West Coast fishery stakeholders are still in the dark as to who will represent them on their regional fishery management councils.

The appointments of 22 new and returning members to six of eight of the nation’s councils were announced on June 28 by the US Dept. of Commerce. The Secretary of Commerce appoints council seats from state governors’ lists of nominees. Each serves three-year terms.

“Appointments to the Pacific and North Pacific fishery management councils will be announced later this summer,” the Commerce press release said.

“My understanding is that the decision on those appointments have not yet been finalized,” said Julie Fair, Public Affairs Officer at NOAA’s Alaska Regional Office. “The appointments for Pacific and North Pacific Fishery Management Councils will be forthcoming later this summer, and we do not anticipate any lapse in voting during their September/October Council meetings,” Fair added. 

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Conservationists sue feds over failure to protect West Coast tope sharks

June 27, 2024 — Conservation groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday morning against the National Marine Fisheries Service for missing its deadline to determine if the tope shark, also known as the soupfin shark, warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The conservation groups hope that listing the tope shark under the act will trigger habitat protections and a review of fishing practices that could aid in the species’ recovery.

The service had initially announced in April 2022 that the tope shark might need protection, but the decision has yet to be made, despite a legal obligation to decide by February 2023.

The tope shark, which inhabits the waters off California, Oregon and Washington, is facing a critical threat due to specific targeting by commercial fishing for its liver oil — which had been historically used for cosmetics production and is now used in the biofuel industry — its meat and its fins, which are considered a delicacy.

It also faces threats from bycatch and entanglement in Mexico’s gillnets, particularly off the coast of Southern California. These gillnets — fishing traps that are hung vertically, trapping fish by their gills — have contributed to the decline of the tope shark populations, which, according to the center, has plummeted by nearly 90% over the past 80 years.

Read the full article at Courthouse News Service

How a microscopic coastal creature may become deadlier in our changing climate

June 18, 2024 — Between 2014 and 2015, a “blob” of record-breaking warm water traversed the west coast of the U.S., gaining media attention as the warm temperatures wreaked havoc on the bottom of the food chain, causing fisheries like sockeye, pink, and coho salmon to collapse and thousands of sea lions and sea birds to starve.

However, amid this devastation, one microscopic creature thrived or “bloomed”—a neurotoxin-producing diatom called Pseudo-nitzschia—causing devastating multi-million dollar losses for many West Coast commercial and tribal crab and shellfish fisheries that had to shut down due to the risk of toxin-contaminated seafood.

The toxin produced by Pseudo-nitzschia, domoic acid, can cause amnesic shellfish poisoning in humans, with symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea, headache, loss of short-term memory, motor weakness, seizures, and irregular heart rhythms.

Beyond the clear ecological and economic devastation, this 2015 blob-associated harmful algal bloom also left the scientific community in shock. The prevailing understanding was that toxic Pseudo-nitzschia blooms were associated with nutrient-rich, cold-water pulses of water seasonally brought up or “upwelled” from the depths along the Pacific west coast.

With the massive hot blob of water hovering over the coastline in 2015, there was little to no upwelling. So how did a toxic bloom occur during this massive heat wave?

Read the full article at PHYS.org