August 11, 2026 — An ocean conservation group asked a Ninth Circuit panel on Monday to make the National Fisheries Management Service take another look at the impact of fishing on essential fish habitat offshore of Alaska.
“All the court needs to decide is a straightforward legal question: Can the Fisheries Service meet its obligation to minimize all adverse effects on all designated essential fish habitat by using only two tests to identify those adverse effects?” posited Katherine Glover, Earthjustice attorney representing Oceana.
Oceana, an advocacy organization focused on ocean conservation, sued the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2024. It accused the service of using the wrong criteria when looking at the effects of fishing on essential fish habitat offshore of Alaska.
Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the service is required to identify and protect “essential fish habitat” necessary to sustain healthy fish populations. As part of that, the service is obligated to minimize adverse impacts on essential fish habitats caused by fishing.
The service approved five amendments to management plans for federally managed groundfish, crab and salmon fisheries in the waters near Alaska, and Oceana accused the service of relying on only two flawed tests to make its decision. One is the core essential fish habitat test and the other is the minimum stock size threshold test.