The Trump administration’s purge of federal employees took a heavy toll on NOAA Fisheries’ regional science centers, where 234 employees exited by firings, incentivized resignations and early retirement, according to agency records.
Those departures account for 43 percent of all fired NOAA Fisheries employees, which numbered 545 people from 20 offices, labs and other facilities, according to spreadsheets obtained through a public records request by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity.
The Southeast Fisheries Science Center, which conducts studies on species in the Gulf of Mexico, the South Atlantic and the Caribbean, lost 56 employees, according to the documents. The Northeast Fisheries Science Center lost 47 staffers conducting research in 13 states from North Carolina to Maine. On the Pacific Coast, the Alaska Fisheries Science Center lost 45 people, according to the documents, while the Seattle-based Northwest center lost 42 employees.
The science centers are responsible for studies considered essential to assessing the health and abundance of marine species, including stock assessments for commercial fisheries and status reports on marine mammals.
