Nathan Strout

NOAA Fisheries has determined a fishery took place in two California salmon fisheries, clearing the path for the fishing industry in those areas to receive financial relief. The U.S. Small Business Administration is also offering low-interest federal disaster loans to businesses affected by the closure.

In April 2023, California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis requested fishery disaster determinations for the Sacramento River Fall chinook

Conservation groups want NOAA Fisheries to ban imports from foreign fisheries that are not adequately working to prevent marine mammal bycatch.

“By continuing to allow imports that do not meet U.S. standards, [NOAA Fisheries] NMFS chooses business as usual over the survival of some of the most amazing species on the planet,” Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Senior Attorney and Global Biodiversity Conservation Director Zak

U.S. Senator Tom Cotton has introduced legislation that would ban the import of seafood and aquaculture products from China.

“Fishing and aquaculture is yet another industry the Chinese Communist Party is weaponizing for their own gain through blatant abuse and slave labor. This legislation will stop imports of this illicit seafood by imposing real costs on the Chinese government and the companies that aid them,” Cotton said in a

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reissued a solicitation for 108,000 pounds of walleye fillets after receiving zero bids on an identical solicitation earlier this year.

The walleye fillets are for distribution to Idaho and Missouri via the National School Lunch Program and other federal food assistance programs, according to the government’s notice. The deadline for offers I 7 December, with any contracts announced by 14

NOAA Fisheries has delayed implementing rules designed to bring seafood imports into compliance with U.S. marine mammal bycatch once again, extending the exemption for another two years.

NOAA Fisheries issued a final rule in 2016 that would require U.S. trade partners to secure a “comparability finding” showing that their wild-caught commercial fishing operations align with U.S. conservation standards for marine mammals. Nations that

The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to purchase more than 800,000 pounds of catfish products, according to a new solicitation.

The department is planning to buy 342,000 pounds of unbreaded, raw catfish fillets and 462,000 pounds of oven-ready, breaded catfish strips for domestic food distribution programs.

Bids are due on 11 December, and the USDA will announce awards by 18 December. The catfish products will need to be delivered to

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) will investigate whether it ought to impose antidumping duties and countervailing duties on imported shrimp from several countries.

Specifically, the DOC will conduct antidumping duty investigations of frozen warmwater shrimp from Ecuador and Indonesia and countervailing duty investigations of frozen warmwater shrimp from Ecuador, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

The investigations were launched in response to

U.S. lawmakers have reintroduced legislation for the Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty, a legal framework established at a United Nations convention 29 years ago.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is a comprehensive set of rules governing how nations can use the world’s oceans; 168 states and the European Union are parties to the treaty. The U.S. signed the treaty in 1994 but is not a party to it –

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will provide an additional 64,716 H-2B temporary work visas in fiscal 2024, nearly doubling the number of available visas from the statutory cap of 66,000.

This is the second year in a row DHS has announced that more than 64,000 additional H-2B visas will be made available to the industry.

Many parts of the seafood sector rely on H-2B visas to fill out their seasonal workforces. In 2022, Alaska's