The Trump administration’s proposed budget released would cut all funding for the Marine Mammal Commission, a federal agency dedicated to the protection of marine mammals.

“I’m truly shocked to see Trump officials trying to kill this crucial protection for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals that just about every single American adores,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The commission Trump wants to destroy costs taxpayers just a penny per person, which is far less than a lot of folks spend on stuffed animals. Healthy oceans depend on healthy marine mammals, and I believe most people understand that and care about the survival of these beautiful creatures.”

The Marine Mammal Commission was established by Congress in 1972 to provide oversight of federal government science, policy, and management actions affecting marine mammals and their ecosystems.

If passed, the proposed budget would eliminate the commission and its staff starting Oct. 1, 2025. No other federal agency performs the functions of the commission.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act requires the U.S. government to ensure the health and survival of all marine mammals within U.S. jurisdiction. Without the commission, it is unclear how federal officials would be able to comply with the law.

The Trump administration has already reportedly crippled the ability of NOAA Fisheries to carry out its mandate of protecting marine species. In February DOGE fired at least 600 NOAA employees and previously gave buyouts to around 170 workers.

“Particularly for coastal states, marine mammals provide immense value to marine ecosystems and help regulate the climate. They also serve as beloved icons for residents and visitors alike, creating a draw for recreational industries,” says the Center.

In 2024 the commission worked to globally reduce entanglement in fishing gear through state and federal actions and by providing grants. The commission also assessed the impacts to marine mammals of proposed activities associated with offshore energy development, suggested ways to minimize harms, and called for partnerships to survey marine mammals in areas proposed for development.

“Eliminating the commission takes away the nation’s strongest voice for marine mammals. It’s another industry giveaway and this time whales’ lives are paying for it,” said Sakashita.

In a significant shift of California’s salmon strategy, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has begun releasing juvenile fall-run Chinook salmon from CDFW-operated hatcheries into the main stem of the Sacramento River for the first time.

The release of approximately 3.5 million fall-run Chinook salmon smolts into the main stem of the Sacramento River occurred in mid-April near Redding and Butte City. The fish originated from increased production at CDFW’s hatchery operations at the Feather River Fish Hatchery and the Mokelumne River Fish Hatchery. CDFW-operated salmon hatcheries historically have supported populations on their home rivers elsewhere in the Central Valley.

“We strongly support the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s bold decision to release salmon smolts directly into the main stem of the Sacramento River – a historic first that gives juvenile fish a fighting chance at survival,” said Scott Artis, executive director at Golden State Salmon Association. “With Sacramento fall-run Chinook returns at crisis levels, and fishing families and businesses having been impacted since 2023, this innovative move is exactly the kind of action we need. We applaud the tireless hatchery staff who made this possible and stand with them in the effort to rebuild our salmon runs and revive California’s commercial and recreational fisheries.”

Last month, for the third year in a row, the federal Pacific Fishery Management Council recommended the closure of all commercial salmon fishing in California while also recommending an extremely limited ocean sport fishing season due to continued low abundance of salmon populations.

While fisheries managers are seeing some positive signs for fall-run Chinook salmon in other parts of the Central Valley due in part to increased hatchery production from state-operated hatcheries and better in-river conditions with wetter years, returns to the main stem of the Sacramento River remain at concerningly low levels.

“The naturally spawning Sacramento River salmon populations have been the primary driver of California’s commercial and recreational salmon fisheries for decades,” said Jay Rowan, CDFW Fisheries Branch Chief. “Poor spawning and migration conditions for fall-run Chinook during the past two droughts have resulted in low returning adult numbers the last three years. These low adult returns not only affected fishing seasons but also reduced the number of spawning adults and, consequently, the number of juvenile salmon available to take advantage of the good river conditions to rebound this part of the run. The extra effort by our hatchery staff to maximize production has allowed us to take measures this year to speed up the rebuilding of these critical Sacramento River natural spawning areas. This significant shift in strategy speaks to CDFW’s long-term commitment to boosting these important salmon populations.”

The 3.5 million fish being released into the main stem of the Sacramento River are part of an additional 9.7 million salmon produced in 2025 above normal production goals, funded in partnership with ocean and inland fishing groups. CDFW’s hatchery operations, in coordination with the state Department of Water Resources, East Bay Municipal Utility District, and the federal Bureau of Reclamation, will raise and release more than 28 million fall-run Chinook salmon in total in 2025.

CDFW’s Sacramento River salmon releases are being timed with increases in water flows that have been shown to improve survival in their journey to the Pacific Ocean and also with salmon releases from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Coleman National Fish Hatchery in Shasta County to overwhelm predators with a massive volume of released fish.

Additionally, CDFW has provided the Coleman National Fish Hatchery with 10 million salmon eggs to help meet its production goals and offset low adult salmon returns to the federal fish hatchery located on Battle Creek about 3 miles east of the Sacramento River in Anderson.

The juvenile salmon released into the Sacramento River are expected to imprint on the main stem during their migration to the ocean, which in three years upon their return to freshwater is expected to increase the number of adults utilizing important natural spawning areas within the main stem.

An April 17 Executive Order President Donald Trump calls for suspending or revising regulations on the U.S. seafood industry, saying that regulations “overly burden” America’s commercial fishing and fish processing industries, as well as the nation’s aquaculture industry.

While the commercial fishing industry generally applauds this step, some environmental groups worry that fish populations, already falling in abundance, could be impacted if regulations are lifted and harvest is opened in protected areas of the ocean.
The President has issued some 140 Executive Orders and directives since taking office Jan. 20 and this EO is one of the latest.

“The United States should be the world’s dominant seafood leader,” the President said when signing the EO, and saying that the nation’s seafood trade deficit is more than $20 billion.

Restoring the American Seafood Industry, as Trump’s EO is called, directs NOAA Fisheries to:

• Incorporate better, cheaper, more reliable technologies and cooperative research programs into fishery assessments.
• Expand exempted fishing permit programs to promote fishing opportunities nationwide.
• Modernize data collection and analytical practices to improve the responsiveness of fisheries management to real-time ocean conditions.

The EO is at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/restoring-american-seafood-competitiveness/

The EO “strengthens the U.S. fishing industry by reducing regulatory burdens, combating unfair foreign trade practices, and enhancing domestic seafood production and exports,” a White House fact sheet says. “The Order establishes an America First Seafood Strategy to boost U.S. seafood production, sales, and exports, ensuring long-term industry growth and global competitiveness.”

It says that Trump recognizes that overregulation and unfair trade practices have eroded the U.S. fishing industry’s global leadership. While U.S. controls over four million square miles of fishing grounds, it imports nearly 90 percent of its seafood and that results in a trade deficit of over $20 billion.

Further, the EO says that the U.S. seafood industry is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the United States, with restrictive catch limits and outdated data hampering American fishermen’s productivity. To further trouble U.S. fishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, forced labor in foreign seafood supply chains and unfair trade practices abroad all undermine U.S. markets.

According to an Associated Press report, some environmental groups said the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act has guided U.S. fishery management for nearly 50 years and was intended to combat overfishing.

Further, they said, the number of fish stocks on the federal overfished list grew from 40 in 2013 to 47 in 2023; conservationists said they fear that number will grow with weakened regulations.

“These executive orders don’t loosen red tape – they unravel the very safety net that protects our oceans, our economy, and our seafood dinners,” Beth Lowell, vice president of Oceana, a conservation group, told the Associated Press. “For decades, the U.S. science-based approach to fisheries management has rebuilt declining stocks, kept American fishers on the water, and protected important places and wildlife.”

The seafood industry is generally in favor of the Executive Order.

“The [EO] outlines key actions to benefit every link in the supply chain – from hardworking fishermen to parents who serve their family this nutritious and sustainable protein at home,” National Fisheries Institute President and CEO Lisa Wallenda Picard told Seafood Source News. “Importantly, the EO calls for reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens on fishermen and seafood producers while also promoting the many benefits of eating seafood as part of a healthy, balanced diet.”

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) called the new executive order a “shot in the arm” for the U.S. seafood industry and said it will provide relief for fishermen.

“These great Alaskans have endured a perfect storm of challenges, which include unfair seafood trade practices by dictatorships like Russia and China, and onerous regulatory burdens from our own federal government,” Sullivan said in a statement. “I have been working relentlessly with the Trump administration, including with the Commerce and Agriculture Departments, and the U.S. Trade Representative, to get relief for our fisherman. They listened.

“Today, President Trump gave our fishermen a major shot in the arm, ordering his administration to remove unnecessary federal red tape and develop an America First Seafood Strategy with measures to enhance the competitiveness of our seafood in global markets and hold bad actors in seafood trade accountable. I appreciate the Trump administration’s continued strong focus on advancing the interests and priorities of Alaska across a range of economic sectors, including our fishermen and coastal communities.”

However, some in the seafood industry worry that cuts at NOAA will make it difficult to for the agency to complete many of the tasks outlined in the EO, especially given some of the short timelines proposed by Trump, according to an article this week in SeafoodSource News.
“NOAA has already lost so many people as a result of the probationary cuts, and even more will be retiring early,” Stimson Center Senior Fellow and Director of its Environmental Security Program Sally Yozell told SeafoodSource.

She is referring to the tasks laid out by Trump’s order for NOAA that could overwhelm an agency reduced by staff cuts from both Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump Administration. She said that the firing of NOAA employees “en masse” have already had impacts on commercial fisheries and fishers.

Yozell said the Reduction in Force (RIF) plans are still unknown for NOAA and its line officers, and the EO’s multi-faceted goals of expanding aquaculture, boosting fishing, and bringing processing back to the U.S. is a “laudable but very tall order” that would require a high degree of expertise, SeafoodSource reported.

The EO establishes an America First Seafood Strategy, a trade strategy to address unfair trade practices, a seafood import monitoring program and it orders a review of all existing marine national monuments to assess opening them to commercial fishing.

An April 22, 2025 Federal Register notification of the Executive Order is here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/22/2025-07062/restoring-american-seafood-competitiveness

Above Photo: Scientists at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center measure the carcass of a short-beaked common dolphin that stranded near San Diego during the ongoing domoic acid event. They will also collect additional information and samples to assess the dolphin’s condition. Credit: Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

The stranding team from NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center recovered 16 dead dolphins from San Diego beaches on Sunday, April 20.

These deaths add to the likely toll of a domoic acid outbreak produced by a harmful algae bloom off Southern California. Most of the dolphins were already dead when responders arrived, or died shortly afterwards. None survived long enough for treatment. Most were adult male long-beaked common dolphins with a few short-beaked common dolphins. Two were pregnant females.

The Sunday toll brings the total dolphins collected by the San Diego team since the first impacts of the domoic acid event were seen in March to more than 50. The details provide a snapshot of how the ongoing harmful algal bloom is affecting one of the most popular stretches of the Southern California coastline. Of the 14 dolphins tested so far, 11 have had high levels of domoic acid. One showed both domoic acid and saxitoxin, a different neurotoxin produced by another marine microorganism that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.

Hundreds of additional dolphins and sea lions have also died in other areas of California since the first domoic acid impacts were detected near Los Angeles in February. This is the fourth consecutive year with a harmful algal bloom off Southern California; the current bloom began earlier in the year than prior blooms. The Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System monitors domoic acid levels off Southern California, and displays domoic acid forecasts online. The impacts are not likely to affect California dolphins or sea lions at a population scale.
NOAA Fisheries’ most recent stock assessment report suggests a population estimate of more than 80,000 long-beaked common dolphins, while short-beaked common dolphins were estimated at more than 1 million. Biologists also estimate that about 250,000 California sea lions live along the coast.

The stranding team is part of the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network coordinated by NOAA Fisheries. The Network relies on the public to report stranded marine mammals to the Stranding Hotline at (866) 767-6114.

The rising number of strandings in recent days demonstrates the importance of Stranding Hotline and Stranding Network partners, including San Diego county lifeguards, California State Park officers, and biologists from the U.S. Navy. Toxicologists at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center analyze the biological samples.