NOAA Fisheries violated federal law by allowing corals, sponges and other seafloor habitats in the Gulf of Alaska to be damaged by unchecked bottom trawling, a lawsuit filed Monday by environmental groups says.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska by the nonprofit group Oceana, says the agency and its primary advisory board, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, failed to consider scientific evidence about trawling impacts on fragile sea-bottom habitats when it adopted five amendments to its North Pacific essential fish habitat (EFH) program last month.
Oceana is seeking to block the amendments from being implemented, arguing the Commerce Department agency, also called the National Marine Fisheries Service, “failed to develop or consider any habitat conservation actions” for the Gulf of Alaska, one of the most important ground fisheries in North America, producing several million tons of seafood annually.
“Instead of using the amendments to advance protection of corals, sponges, and seafloor habitat from the destructive effects of trawling, defendants ignored and underrepresented fishing effects and declined to consider alternatives that would have protected benthic species and habitat with minimal displacement of fishing effort,” states the complaint, filed by the nonprofit Earthjustice on Oceana’s behalf.
