August 14, 2015 — ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Aquarium says a government agency’s denial of its permit to import 18 beluga whales from Russia was arbitrary and capricious, but the government argues the aquarium failed to meet the requirements of a law meant to protect marine mammals.
The aquarium in September 2013 filed a lawsuit asking a judge to overturn the denial of its June 2012 application by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, known as NOAA Fisheries. Lawyers for the two sides faced off Friday in federal court in Atlanta.
Each side accused the other of twisting the facts, with a lawyer for the aquarium saying the government had “cooked the books” on whale population numbers and a lawyer for NOAA Fisheries accusing the aquarium trying “to confuse the court.”
The two sides have asked U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg to make a decision on the merits of the case, based on court filings and oral arguments, without holding a trial. Totenberg asked questions of both sides and seemed troubled by “an extremity of data poverty” concerning beluga population numbers.
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