Oceana served notice on Monday, Dec. 8, of its intent to appeal a federal district court dismissal of its lawsuit contending that federal fishery managers failed to protect corals, sponges, and other seafloor habitats in the Gulf of Alaska.
The notice of appeal was filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The international advocacy entity for ocean conservation, represented by Earthjustice, charged in its lawsuit filed in August of 2024 in the U.S. District Court in Anchorage, Alaska, that the National Marine Fisheries Service and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council have consistently failed to minimize adverse effects to essential fish habitats from bottom trawling. Bottom trawling involves huge, weighted nets as long as a mile in length being dragged up to 15 miles along the seafloor, damaging and often destroying everything in their path.
The Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act requires that fishery managers use the best available science and identify conservation actions to protect essential fish habitat, such as corals, sponges or other habitat areas critical for the breeding, feeding, and spawning of halibut, salmon, rockfish, black cod, crab, and other species important to commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishing.
Ben Enticknap, fisheries campaign director and senior scientist at Oceana, said that the science and the law are clear that deep-sea corals and sponges are critical to the health of fisheries and ocean ecosystems, and that federal law requires fishery managers to protect them for that very reason. “Some corals in the Gulf of Alaska are hundreds of years old, and it’s terrifying to think that they are vulnerable to the destruction of a trawl net when there are reasonable and responsible ways to protect them while still allowing for productive fisheries," Enticknap said.
The National Academy of Sciences has for years identified bottom trawling as the greatest threat to these seafloor habitats.
During the council's December meeting in Anchorage, Oceana submitted an updated Gulf of Alaska Habitat Protection Proposal. According to Oceana, their proposal would protect over 90 percent of the Gulf of Alaska from bottom trawling, while displacing no more than an estimated 7 percent of recent trawl fishing areas. Their proposal would largely limit trawling to where it already occurs to protect untrawled areas while identifying areas like coral gardens within the trawl footprint that require additional protection.
Federal fisheries managers have already established extensive habitat protections throughout the state, including the Aleutian Islands, Northern Bering Sea , and Arctic Ocean. Meanwhile, over 90 percent of the central and western Gulf of Alaska remains open to bottom trawling, Oceana noted.
