Fish caught by methods that can also entangle whales, dolphins, and seals will be banned from U.S. import, starting Jan. 1, 2026, according to a recent agreement.
Conservation groups earlier this month made a deal with the U.S. government to stop importing seafood that doesn’t meet marine mammal protection standards. U.S. fishers must also follow similar standards in domestic waters.
The agreement is intended to minimize bycatch — the accidental entanglement of mammals fishers weren’t intending to haul aboard. While many fishers have changed their techniques to avoid catching mammals, there is still work to do.
Read More: How Fishing Vessels Keep Dolphins From Getting Caught in Nets
Unintentional Catches
An estimated 650,000 whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals are unintentionally caught every year. Many of those animals are tossed overboard, and either drown, or die from injuries.
“Entanglement is a huge threat to these animals’ survival,” Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a news release. “The United States has the power to use its enormous seafood market to help the world’s oceans, and it’s about time we started.”
The U.S. imports about $25.5 billion worth of seafood products every year. Those imports come from more than 130 nations and include shrimp, tuna, and other finfish. Around 80 percent of seafood eaten in the U.S. is imported.
Time for Enforcement?
Although the 1972 U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibited the U.S. from allowing seafood to enter the country unless exporting nations meet the same standards applied to U.S. fishers, in practice the provision was rarely enforced. In 2016, the government began the process to establish which fisheries to ban, but has delayed putting that policy into place.
The deal should “ensure some relief for threatened marine mammals suffering from bycatch, level the playing field for fishermen working hard to protect marine mammals, and give consumers more confidence that the seafood they consume does not needlessly kill the whales and dolphins they love,” Zak Smith, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a news release.
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
