Two killer whales are seen breaching in Alaska waters on June 9, 2005. Killer whales, also known as orcas, and other marine mammals have been killed after becoming entangled in trawl gear used in Alaska commercial fisheries. A new lawsuit accuses federal regulators of withholding important information about those incidents. (Photo by David Ellifrit/NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center)
The federal government has failed to give adequate information on deaths of killer whales and other marine mammals that become entangled in commercial trawling gear in Alaska waters, claims a lawsuit filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage.
The lawsuit, filed by the environmental group Oceana, targets the National Marine Fisheries Service, an agency of the National Oceanic and atmospheric Administration.
The whales and other marine mammals killed in fishing gear are subjects of what is known as bycatch , the unintended, incidental catch of species that are not the harvest target.
The lawsuit focuses on three Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Oceana from 2021 to 2023. Oceana asked for records, photographs and videos of animals that have been killed as bycatch in Alaska fisheries. The agency denied some requests and provided information in response to others, but that information was heavily redacted, with photographs blurred and made unrecognizable through a pixelation technique and text blacked out, the lawsuit said.