The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has maintained a moratorium on fishing for northern shrimp for another three years through 2028 and decided on no sampling program in 2026.
The decision comes after the commission voted in 2024 to open a small winter harvest to collect data on the stock in 2025. The limited winter harvest allowed fishers to run through March 2025 or until they reached a 26.5-metric-ton (MT) limit, whichever came first, and was a slight positive sign after a decade of closures that started in 2014.
That sample fishery was welcomed by regulators and fishing advocates in the region, who said it was an opportunity to determine whether there are still shrimp in the Gulf of Maine after the long moratorium on fishing.
The 2025 Northern Shrimp Data Update, however, found there was no improvement in stock status, with new time series lows in total abundance of the species, which the ASMFC attributed to environmental factors.
“Environmental conditions have been unfavorable for northern shrimp during the moratorium, but two environmental indices, the index of predation pressure and winter surface temperature, showed improvement in the most recent year of data,” the ASMFC said.
The Associated Press reported catch totals in the fishery remained low throughout the sample fishery.
ASMFC said its technical committee will continue to provide data on the shrimp fishery for the next three years, and if temperature or recruitment triggers are tripped, there may be more sampling programs in 2027 and 2028.
“For the recruitment trigger, three years of non-failed recruitment would initiate a full stock assessment update with projections to be completed as soon as possible,” ASMFC said. “For the temperature trigger, two out of three consecutive years of winter surface temperature and spring bottom temperature below the 80th percentile of the reference period (1984-2017) would prompt the Section to consider running the winter sampling program without the use of the size-sorting grates.”
Gulf of Maine shrimp has been a victim of rapidly warming waters in the region, which scientists have repeatedly found is one of the fastest-warming ocean regions in the world. In May 2025, the ASMFC approved Amendment 4 to the interstate management plan of the stock, which allowed regulators to enact a moratorium for multiple years at a time, rather than year by year, given the continued poor condition of the stock since 2013.
Northern shrimp are particularly vulnerable to temperature shifts, as the species is a hermaphrodite that changes gender as it matures – beginning as males and shifting to females as they age. Scientific studies have found that shift could be impacted by warmer water, leading to lower recruitment.
