Saving Seafood

State and Local

MAINE: Anti-offshore wind fishing group backed by right-wing money eyes support from Maine towns

April 3, 2025 — Since its founding three years ago, the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association has been a vocal opponent of offshore wind and relied on funding from a right-wing advocacy group connected to one of the most influential conservative activists in the U.S.

Now, the fishermen’s organization known as NEFSA is looking to diversify its revenue sources by asking coastal communities in Maine for financial support.

Jerry Leeman is the founder and CEO of NEFSA. And for the past three years he’s been the star of an advocacy campaign that’s led him up and down the northeast coast to preach against offshore wind.

Sometimes it’s in a banquet room in Rye, N.H., or in one of NEFSA’s slickly produced videos.

“These ridiculous data assessments that are based on little to nothing, we’re doing falsified research. It’s political science. This isn’t real science. Real science is the real observation of what things are,” Leeman said in one of NEFSA’s videos.

That message — and his sharp critiques of offshore wind — have also landed Leeman interviews on FOX News. When a blade from the Vineyard Wind project near Nantucket broke and sent debris onto nearby beaches last summer, Leeman joined a protest flotilla that drew interest from the network’s business channel.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MAINE: UMaine launches floating wind turbine prototype in Trenton

April 3, 2025 — The University of Maine has launched a quarter-scale prototype of a floating wind turbine base that researchers hope will pave the way for commercial-scale wind power development in the Gulf of Maine.

Project officials first sought to float the 380-ton floating concrete base for the prototype from the seaplane ramp at Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton on Sunday, but initially could not get it far enough down the ramp to get it to float when high tide peaked at around noon, according to Bar Harbor Story.

A later attempt, shortly after midnight, was successful, according to UMaine spokesperson Marcus Wolf.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Health program for fishermen launched

April 3, 2025 — Healthy Harvesters, a wellness program designed for fishermen, has been launched by the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety, Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries and the town of Stonington.

“This is an essential program for providing fishermen with much needed support in improving their health and increasing their access to health care,” said NCOHS Director Julie Sorensen in a press release.

Read the full article at Mount Desert Islander

ALASKA: ADF&G sets 2025 Chinook limits, tightens regulations

April 3, 2025 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) announced a preseason all-gear catch limit of 133,500 treaty Chinook salmon for Southeast Alaska in 2025, per the Pacific Salmon Treaty provisions.

ADF&G has set a target of 130,850 Chinook salmon, incorporating a 2 percent reduction from the treaty catch limit to serve as a buffer against exceeding the all-gear limit and triggering payback provisions.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

WASHINGTON: Washington legislators propose USD 5 billion plan to fund culvert removals, reopen habitat to salmon

April 3, 2025 — Lawmakers in the U.S. state of Washington have proposed a USD 5 billion (EUR 4.6 billion) plan for removing or replacing culverts in the state to open up historic salmon spawning habitat.

The plan is a response to the state’s decade-long efforts to comply with a 2013 federal court order that found the state’s culverts blocked salmon and steelhead trout migration, violating Tribal rights.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MASSACHSUETTS: Trump’s shadow looms as offshore wind price negotiation deadline missed

April 2, 2025 — Negotiators working on contracts for two new offshore wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts say they need more time to strike a deal, yet another sign that President Trump’s anti-wind philosophy is wreaking havoc with the state’s energy plans.

The price negotiations between the state’s utilities and the offshore wind developers, Avangrid and Ocean Winds, were scheduled to wrap up on Monday, but they couldn’t reach a deal in the allotted time and set a new deadline of June 30. Under the updated timeline, the contracts won’t become public until August 25.

The latest delay was the second time since Trump was elected that the two sides have failed to meet a deadline and contract negotiations had to be extended.

Officials for all the parties declined to comment on the cause of the holdups, but a spokeswoman for the Healey administration indicated Trump’s opposition to offshore wind is making it difficult to reach a deal.

Read the full article at the CommonWealth Beacon

RHODE ISLAND: RI fishermen back legislation that could make calamari cheaper

April 2, 2025 — The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) said climate change is bringing more squid to Rhode Island than ever before, but the rules about how much they can catch are made by out-of-state regulators.

“We have the highest amount of landings here in Rhode Island and we don’t even sit on the council that makes the rules for them,” said Jason McNamee, the deputy director of the DEM’s Bureau of Natural Resources.

He said squid used to be more of a mid-Atlantic species. Yet while the species has migrated north, the regulations are still being created by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. The council includes members representing states from New York to North Carolina, but not Rhode Island.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News

ALASKA: Alaska expands commercial dipnet fishery

April 2, 2025 — Alaska’s commercial dipnet fishery is getting more time on the water this season, following an expansion approved by the State Board of Fisheries in March.

The board’s decision, reported by Peninsula Clarion’s Jake Dye, extends fishing hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, increasing opportunities for participants while maintaining limits aimed at protecting struggling king salmon stocks.

The expansion came from a proposal by Joseph Person, who initially sought to allow 12-hour openings every day of the week. The board unanimously approved the increase on March 15 but adjusted the plan to restrict operations to weekdays. The season will continue to run from June 20 through July 31, rejecting Person’s request to extend it through mid-August. Additional provisions now allow dipnet fishermen to operate on City of Kenai shore leases and require them to record any released king or coho salmon on a fish ticket.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: State imposes ‘unprecedented’ conservation measures for Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon

April 1, 2025 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is imposing what it calls “unprecedented” conservation measures to address declines of Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon — also known as king salmon — which is currently under review for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The department said in a March 18 announcement that it will be restricting western Alaska king salmon fisheries, including in Kodiak, Chignik and Sand Point.

Matt Keyse, an area management biologist at fish and game’s Sand Point office, said this is the first time the department has used data from one region to trigger management action in another.

“That is unprecedented from managing a fishery based on fish that are not found locally to the systems in the area in which we’re harvesting fish,” Keyse said.

Sand Point — off the Alaska Peninsula — is in the middle of the management region known as Area M. Although it doesn’t have its own king runs, fishermen intercept salmon that migrate through the region. In recent years, Area M’s harvest levels have drawn criticism from stakeholders in Western Alaska, who argue the fishery reduces local salmon returns.

Read the full article at KYUK

MARYLAND: Robert Newberry of the Delmarva Fisheries Association pushes back against new regulations impacting fishermen

April 1, 2025 — The Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission has imposed new regulations on striped bass. The decision came after concerns over below-average striped bass numbers in the Chesapeake Bay.

Robert Newberry, CEO of the Delmarva Fisheries Association, claims the ASMFC unfairly targeted watermen. “We constantly complain to the ASMFC that reducing from our 2 fish on the stripe-bass for charter boats is cutting 50% of our industry right out of the gate.”

The Commission pushed for these implementations because they believed they would restore balance to the bay. Management Plan Coordinator Emilie Franke, said this was the best move to save striped bass.

“Right now, the stock is over-fished, which means it is below our threshold for female spawning stock biomass, which means all the mature females that can spawn and contribute new fish to the stock.”

Read the full article at WMDT