Section
Lobstermen of Stonington, the sardine canneries of Astoria, Aran longliners, the Maine herring co-op.
Fisheries
Nephrops norvegicus — Norway lobster, scampi, langoustine, prawn, depending on who is buying — is the most valuable shellfish landed in the United Kingdom. The Eyemouth fleet has fished it for decades. The 2026 season has begun under unusual conditions.
Fisheries
The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery is the largest wild salmon run on Earth. The economy that surrounds it — permits, processors, set-net sites, charter pilots, tender captains — runs on a fragile combination of biology, price, and timing. The 2026 forecast is, by Bristol Bay standards, modest.
Fisheries
Iceland has run a transferable individual quota system for its cod fishery since 1991. The system has rebuilt the stock, consolidated the fleet, and made a handful of families wealthy. In Vestmannaeyjar, the largest of the Westman Islands, the consequences are visible from any dock.
Fisheries
New Bedford has been the most valuable fishing port in the United States for twenty-four consecutive years, almost entirely on the strength of one species. The Atlantic sea scallop fishery is the most tightly managed in the country. It is also, in 2026, in the middle of a quiet crisis.
Fisheries
The Maine herring fleet is smaller than it has been in a century. The co-op that organises most of it has spent the past four years writing letters to the New England Fishery Management Council, and the past two years preparing for a fishery that may not exist in 2030.
Fisheries
The pier at Kilronan looks much the same as it did in 1995, except that there are now six boats tied up where there were twenty-two. The men who fish them are mostly between fifty and seventy. The fish, which are mostly pollack and ling, are coming up at depths the boats used not to bother with.
Fisheries
Bornstein Seafoods runs a small can line three days a week in a low building on Pier 39. The pack is modest, the labels are several, and the work is mostly done by women in their fifties who used to work the salmon cannery next door.
Fisheries
The boats leave the harbour before five, in a cold that the gauges call thirty-one. The talk on the radio is short. The traps are coming up heavy with kelp and not much else.