May 2025 - Director's Corner

Melissa with her first salmon back in 2013!

Together, We Must Keep Pushing Forward 

By Melissa Mahoney, May 8th

The closure of California’s king salmon fishery for a third consecutive year wasn’t unexpected, but it still hurts. It landed with a heavy thud, like a boulder sinking into thick mud: silent but reverberating, clouding the waters and forcing all the creatures nearby to duck and cover.

Speaking of duck and cover, that’s how I’ve felt every time I look at the daily news cycle. Here’s just a glimpse of what we’re tracking — developments that will have deep, lasting impacts on our fisheries and ocean health:

  • Federal worker layoffs and budget cuts are sowing chaos in fisheries management at NOAA Fisheries and the Pacific Council. Hatcheries along the West Coast are severely understaffed, risking the recovery of critical salmon runs.

  • A leaked White House budget memo proposes nearly $2 billion in cuts to NOAA, gutting Sea Grant, ocean acidification research, and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. With climate disruption increasing, this is no time to walk back on science.

  • The Protecting American Energy from State Overreach executive order could weaken state protections and pave the way for new oil drilling off California’s coast — an alarming prospect already becoming real for Santa Barbara.

  • Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance sounds supportive of working waterfronts, but may instead prioritize military and energy interests over fishing communities and food production.

  • Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness aims to reduce regulations and boost U.S. seafood, echoing an earlier Trump-era order that often favored large-scale industrial operators over small fisheries. Given the deep cuts to management, it may be a recipe for disaster. 

There’s so much happening, so fast, it can feel impossible to keep up. And maybe that’s the point: a deliberate strategy of chaos, where erosion of protections becomes the norm, and we’re too overwhelmed to resist.

But here at MBFT, we’re staying grounded, and we will keep moving forward. 

We’re still donating seafood to local food banks whose federal support is vanishing. 

We’re celebrating every halibut, rockfish, and local catch that comes in — even without salmon.


We’re investing in the future of our local fisheries and advocating for critical infrastructure improvements. This is the moment to help each other in only the ways a community can. We are stronger together.  

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