Nathan Strout is a Portland, Maine-based associate editor of SeafoodSource. Previously, Nathan covered the U.S. military’s space activities and emerging technologies at C4ISRNET and Defense News, where he won awards for his reporting on the U.S. Space Force’s missile warning capabilities. Nathan got his start in journalism writing about several communities in Midcoast Maine for a local daily paper, The Times Record.
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U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has introduced legislation that would create a new grant program that would help the commercial fishing sector gain or preserve access to “working waterfront” areas.
“In Maine, our fisheries are one of our state's most important resources and are vital to our economy,” Collins said in remarks on the Senate floor. “A report of Maine's seafood sector as a whole, which included
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The U.S. Senate passed a package of appropriations bills in late October that included funding for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The legislation includes key provisions for the domestic seafood industry and brings Congress one step closer to providing funding for fiscal-year 2024 and avoiding a government shutdown. Congress agreed to a last-minute deal in September to avert a partial
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The Center for Biological Diversity is planning to sue NOAA Fisheries following the revelation that nine killer whales have been killed during commercial fishing operations in the Bering Sea so far this year.
In October 2023, NOAA Fisheries announced that ten killer whales had been taken as bycatch by groundfish trawlers operating off the coast of Alaska. Only one of the whales survived the encounters.
The Center for Biological Diversity
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The U.S. state of Mississippi is set to dole out USD 6.6 million (EUR 6.2 million) in financial relief to commercial fishermen, seafood dealers, aquaculture harvesters, and live-bait fisheries impacted by the 2019 Mississippi Bonnet Carré Spillway disaster.
The spillway diverts floodwater away from populated areas and into the Mississippi sound, but the surge of freshwater can be damaging to ocean life. Officials believe the fresh-water
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The U.S. House’s Natural Resources Committee has voted to advance the Red Snapper Act, legislation that would limit NOAA Fisheries’ ability to close fisheries in the South Atlantic until a new red snapper survey is completed and incorporated into the stock assessment.
The legislation is the latest front in the battle between NOAA Fisheries and red snapper fishermen, the latter of whom argue that the regulators’ official stock
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The U.S. Department of Commerce has determined fishery disasters occurred in several fisheries in Alaska, California, Louisiana, and Oregon, opening the door for those fisheries to receive federal financial assistance.
Most notably, the department determined a disaster took place across all Oregon chinook salmon fisheries from 2018 to 2020.
“This determination is incredible news for commercial fishers who have been waiting for years to
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The U.S. House’s Natural Resources Committee has approved legislation that would finally bring America’s regulations into alignment with amendments to the South Pacific Tuna Treaty signed in 2016.
The 1987 treaty enables American tuna purse-seine vessels to fish in the exclusive economic zones of 16 Pacific Island nations and is key to the ongoing operations of America’s South Pacific tuna fleet. In 2016, the treaty signatories
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A bill introduced in the U.S. Congress designed to encourage offshore aquaculture has drawn opposition from a coalition of fishermen opposed to the practice.
The SEAfood Act would authorize NOAA to create an offshore aquaculture assessment program, establish a grant program for aquaculture centers of excellence, and order two reports on aquaculture regulations. Don’t Cage Our Oceans, a group opposed to offshore finfish farming, came out
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NOAA has awarded USD 16.8 million (EUR 15.9 million) in funding for 10 projects conducting collaborative research on Gulf of Mexico fisheries and the environment.
“The Gulf of Mexico is a vibrant ecosystem with diverse and productive habitats,” NOAA National Ocean Service Director Nicole LeBoeuf said. “These awards represent NOAA’s commitment to providing the best available science to the natural resource managers who
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A NOAA Fisheries analysis found that North Atlantic right whales will go extinct unless vessel strikes and gear entanglements are “considerably reduced.”
The comprehensive population viability analysis was conducted by the NOAA Fisheries North Atlantic Right Whale Implementation Teams and considered three threats to the species: Entanglements in fishing gear, vessel strikes, and changes in prey abundance and availability. Looking at
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