Saving Seafood

The El Niño stars are aligning in record-breaking ways. Here’s how the high tides stack up

October 16, 2026 — With homes nearly toppling into the ocean and back-to-back floods and hurricanes amplifying our sense of dread, keeping track of all things El Niño can be overwhelming.

So I called up Patrick Barnard, who spent years leading the U.S. Geological Survey’s renowned coastal hazards team in California and now helms key climate adaptation research at UC Santa Cruz. A maestro at bringing together all manner of data, Barnard broke down the numbers in no-nonsense terms — explaining why the coming weeks and months might bring extreme flooding like we’ve never seen before.

“All the stars are aligning for a pretty dramatic winter,” said Barnard, as he pored over the El Niño tea leaves, so to speak, and rattled off every high tide phenomenon on track to converge by the holidays. “If you start stacking all these things up, the flood risk just goes up exponentially.”

To start, the waters off the California coast have been the hottest they have ever been at this time of year. Multiple temperature records have been shattered, and an intense marine heat wave has been churning since last December — making our typical high tides even higher — El Niño notwithstanding.

Warm water, put simply, expands, whereas cold water takes up less space. And this heat wave alone, Barnard explained, has already made sea level rise temporarily by about 6 inches.

Now add El Niño on top of these 6 inches. Historically, El Niño can raise water levels along the West Coast by an additional 6 to 12 inches throughout the winter, and key indicators for this season are already pointing to a supercharged El Niño.

Read the full article at the LA Times

Groundfish rule brings gear marking changes for 335 vessels

October 16, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries has finalized new gear marking and entanglement-reduction requirements for portions of the Pacific Coast groundfish fleet, including new color-coded lines and buoy markings for vessels fishing with pot and bottom longline gear.

The final rule, published in the Federal Register on Oct. 13, applies to limited entry and directed open access groundfish fisheries in federal waters off Washington, Oregon, and California. Most provisions take effect Jan. 11, 2027, while fishermen will have until Jan. 11, 2030, to transition to manufactured line meeting the new color requirements.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Beneath the surface: what buoys reveal about ocean acidification

October 15, 2026 — What can a buoy tell us about ocean acidification? Quite a lot, especially when it has been collecting measurements for years.

In the California Current, a slow moving southward current that moves from British Columbia to Baja California, long-term observations help scientists track how ocean conditions change over hours, seasons, and years. Since natural phenomena like upwelling and El Niño rapidly alter water chemistry, continuous observations are vital for separating short-term fluctuations from broader ocean acidification trends.

Join Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps) graduate student, Charles Lindsay, at sea as the recent Ocean Time-Series group, led by Uwe Send, deploy and maintain an ocean monitoring mooring off Southern California. In Anchored in the California Current: A Buoy’s View of Ocean Oscillations, readers are taken aboard a “day in the life” look at the work behind long-term ocean observations and the effort required to keep these instruments collecting data.

Read the full article at NOAA Ocean Acidification Program

NOAA Fisheries introduces new West Coast gear rules to reduce entanglements

October 13, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries has rolled out new requirements and voluntary measures to reduce whale entanglements in commercial fishing gear on the U.S. West Coast.

“This rulemaking is, in part, in response to increased rates of entanglement of humpback whales with Pacific Coast fishing gear since 2014,” NOAA Fisheries said in its release. “Marine animals, like whales and turtles, can get caught in fishing gear, which can prevent them from eating or cause serious injury or death. The animal most often entangled in gear associated with the Pacific Coast groundfish fishery is the humpback whale.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

United States Wins Key Measures Benefiting U.S. Fisheries on Pacific Bluefin Tuna and Ensuring Research on Dorado and Billfish

October 8, 2026 —  During recent international negotiations, the U.S. delegation to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission advanced key American economic and conservation priorities. The successes support Executive Order 14276 on “Restoring America’s Seafood Competitiveness” by improving U.S. fishing opportunities, leveling the playing field for U.S. commercial fishermen, and modernizing ocean governance.

At the September 2026 Commission annual meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, 21 nations built consensus on high-priority fisheries and issues, including:

  • Pacific bluefin tuna
  • Electronic monitoring
  • South Pacific albacore
  • Dorado, South Pacific swordfish, and other billfish
  • Sharks and seabirds

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

OREGON: ‘Super’ El Niño may affect Oregon salmon

October 6, 2026 — Something fishy could be happening off the Oregon coast.

A greater-than-90 % chance of a very strong El Niño is expected to develop, with warm surface water temperatures already arriving along the California coast.

Scientists are watching what warmer water could mean for local fisheries and marine life.

When we talk about El Niño or La Niña, we often focus on how it affects the weather. But underwater, the effects would mean life or death for some marine life – including salmon.

“When you go to the marine environment, it’s not always quite as rosy when there’s an El Niño event,” said Spencer Sawasake, a habitat division deputy administrator with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Read the full article at KATU

Pacific Fishery Management Council moves to redefine sardine stock, eliminating rebuilding plan

October 1, 2026 — The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) has proposed merging two Pacific sardine subpopulations into a single stock, eliminating a rebuilding plan adopted and set in motion last year.

Currently, the federal government considers there to be two Pacific sardine stocks along the U.S. West Coast – a northern subpopulation and a southern subpopulation. NOAA Fisheries first listed the northern subpopulation as overfished in 2019.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

OREGON: Lawmakers urge continued support for West Coast fishermen, Oregon’s seafood industry

September 22, 2026 — Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley led a bipartisan group of Oregon and Washington lawmakers in a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins that calls on the USDA to deliver critical federal support to West Coast fishermen and seafood harvesters, processors, and distributors by purchasing Pacific Hake (whiting) fillets under its Section 32 purchase program.

“Historically, Pacific whiting exports to Ukraine, one of the largest whiting fillet markets, reached up to nearly $95 million per year, but instability in the region as a result of war has put that market in jeopardy and caused significant impacts to the supply chain. Compounded by trade embargoes, increased imported competition from low-cost proteins, inflationary pressures, rising operational costs, and more, these factors threaten the long-term stability and viability of this once-booming market and create uncertainty for coastal economies that rely on the whiting fishery’s success for their livelihoods,” wrote the lawmakers.

Read the full article at Lincoln County Leader

Pacific Northwest lawmakers request Section 32 purchase of hake

September 22, 2026 — U.S. lawmakers from the Pacific Northwest are asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to make a bulk purchase of Pacific whiting, or hake, as the ongoing war in Ukraine and other supply chain issues continue to impact demand.

“Historically, Pacific whiting exports to Ukraine, one of the largest whiting fillet markets, reached up to nearly USD 95 million per year (EUR 83 million), but instability in the region as a result of war has put that market in jeopardy and caused significant impacts to the supply chain,” the lawmakers said in a joint letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. “Compounded by trade embargoes, increased imported competition from low-cost proteins, inflationary pressures, rising operational costs, and more, these factors threaten the long-term stability and viability of this once-booming market and create uncertainty for coastal economies that rely on the whiting fishery’s success for their livelihoods.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

OREGON: West Coast lawmakers ask USDA to buy more Oregon fish

September 21, 2026 — Oregon and Washington lawmakers want the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support the West Coast’s ailing seafood industry by purchasing locally-caught fish to supplant profits from product that’s usually shipped to war-ravaged Ukraine.

The lawmakers, led by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, said in a Sept. 18 release that the agency’s purchase of Pacific Hake, or whiting, fillets, would support harvesters, processors, and coastal economies.

A letter from the lawmakers supporting the call said Ukraine is one of the largest Pacific whiting fillet markets. Regional instability from the war has impacted the supply chain and jeopardized that export market, which brings in nearly $95 million annually.

Read the full article at the Central Oregon Daily