In December of 2024, Oceana filed two lawsuits against the National Marine Fisheries Service for withholding information about the injury and death of marine life taken in commercial fisheries off California and Alaska. The cases were filed after the Fisheries Service provided inadequate responses to multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests where Oceana sought records, photographs, and videos related to bycatch in trawl fisheries off California and Alaska. Those requests were either denied or photographs and records provided were heavily redacted, as shown below:

Click here to view more samples of the hundreds of heavily redacted photos Oceana received of marine mammal bycatch in Alaska trawl fisheries.

View the Alaska Complaint and California Complaint we filed in December.

Click here to read a story in the Alaska Beacon on our lawsuits and the need for public access to information to hold the government accountable and ensure U.S. fisheries are managed sustainably.