MIAMI– Activists on Thursday sued the federal government to release images of dead killer whales, sea lions and other marine mammals ensnared by commercial fishing boats off the U.S. West Coast.
The complaints were filed after the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration failed to comply with multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Oceana, a Washington-based conservation group, as part of its campaign to raise public awareness about the harmful effects of trawling in federally managed waters.
“People have a right to know how commercial fishing affects marine wildlife,” Tara Brock, legal director of Oceana in the Pacific, said in a statement.
The lawsuits were filed Thursday on behalf of Oceana in federal courts in Alaska and California by attorneys from San Francisco-based Earthjustice.
At the heart of the legal challenge is NOAA’s sometimes contradictory dual mandate: to promote fisheries to their maximum sustainable levels and to enforce laws that protect marine mammals.
Oceana has long campaigned for stricter controls on trawling, one of the least sustainable fishing methods and involving large boats dragging huge nets on or near the ocean floor, collecting enormous amounts of unintended bycatch. The lawsuit notes high — and sometimes rising — levels of animal entanglements in U.S. waters. According to NOAA data, 10 killer whales became entangled in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska in a four-month period last year alone. All but one were dead.
Oceana has filed public records requests starting in 2021 seeking photos and video recordings of the deaths taken by taxpayer-funded monitors placed on ships to ensure compliance with federal conservation mandates.
NOAA declined to provide data on marine mammal bycatch from the halibut fishery off the coast of California. In the case of Alaska, it released a few unredacted images, but the majority were heavily redacted and pixelated, some to the point that it is impossible to identify the animal shown, Oceana said.
A spokesperson for NOAA said the agency cannot comment on lawsuits.
But in the lawsuit, Oceana alleges that NOAA was told that releasing unredacted images would violate provisions of the Magnuson Stevens Act, the main legislation regulating fishing that requires the identity of specific vessels and companies are protected.
Oceana argues in the lawsuit that the Magnuson Stevens Act is “based on the principle that the public should be able to meaningfully participate in fisheries management” and that NOAA’s denial of its data request unlawfully destroys its oversight of commercial fishing practices.
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