Chris Chase

Spain has agreed to accede to the United Nation’s International Marine Organization’s Cape Town Agreement, making it the 11th party to do so and significantly boosting the number of vessels that the agreement needs to come into force. 

The Cape Town Agreement, drafted in 2012, would regulate fishing vessel safety for the workers on vessels. In order to come into force, 22 countries representing a total of 3,600 fishing vessels

The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative (MLMC) announced on 9 February that its director, Matt Jacobson, will be stepping down effective 25 February. 

Jacobson, the former CEO of Maine & Company, was hired as the first executive director of the MLMC in 2014. 

"On behalf of the entire board, we want to thank Matt for his dedicated service in this role over the past five years," Frank Gotwals, the MLMC board chairman and a

Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd announced that it has submitted a petition for emergency rulemaking demanding that the U.S. government cease importing seafood from New Zealand in order to protect the Māui dolphin. 

The Māui dolphin, found off the west coast of the north island in New Zealand, is one of the rarest marine mammals in the world: The scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) estimates that

A new index ranking vulnerability to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU) by country has listed China as having the highest IUU potential. 

The index, created by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, ranks countries on a number of metrics, with a higher score meaning a higher likelihood that a country’s policies are contributing to IUU fishing. The metrics have four main categories – coastal,

Nordic Aquafarms announced on 9 February that the company is planning to build a second recirculating aquaculture system facility in the United States.

The new facility will be in Humboldt County, California, and has the potential to be a USD 400 million (EUR 354.9 million) investment, according to Nordic.

Nordic has already been working through the permitting process for the first phase of its USD 500 million (EUR 443 million) project in

Multiple rule-changes could be coming for Maine’s lucrative lobster industry from both the state and federal governments in the coming year. 

At the federal level, concerns over entanglements with the endangered North Atlantic right whale have led fisheries managers to begin discussing what steps need to be taken by the lobster industry to avoid whale deaths. Currently there are just over 400 right whales left in the world, and high

Tilapia production globally has steadily increased over the past decade – with 2018 production estimated at nearly 6.3 million metric tons (MT) – yet U.S. imports were forecast to likely be at their lowest level in several years. 

The data, shared at the Value Finfish panel during the 2019 Global Seafood Market Conference in Coronado, California earlier this month, estimates that the U.S. imported around 300,000 MT of tilapia in

InnovaSea Systems Inc., of Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., announced on 1 February that it has acquired Water Management Technologies Inc. (WMT), of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

WMT has, for 25 years, designed and supplied equipment that can be utilized in aquaculture systems, including effluent and complete recirculating aquaculture systems. The new acquisition, according to InnovaSea, will become a new business unit within the company called

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has asked Nordic Aquafarms for more information regarding the path of its discharge pipe, due to a state law that could mean the pipe’s current path crosses private property the company doesn’t have rights to. 

Nordic Aquafarms – which announced plans to build a salmon recirculating aquaculture system in Belfast, Maine a year ago – has been steadily moving forward on

Atlantic Capes Fisheries and BJ’s Service Company, Inc. have agreed to pay a total of USD 675,000 (EUR 587,600) in a settlement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission related to four women who said they were sexually harassed in the workplace. 

The lawsuit, which was settled on 30 January, stems from allegations by the EEOC that sexual harassment was perpetrated by managers, line supervisors, and co-workers of IQF