A national animal rights group is suing the state, alleging that it has failed to adequately protect fish raised in aquaculture facilities and that it does not have rules in place to regulate large-scale fish farms.

Animal Outlook, an animal advocacy organization based in Washington DC and California, filed suit Feb. 22 in Kennebec County Superior Court to challenge the state’s decision to reject its citizen petition.

The petition, signed by 152 registered Maine voters, calls on the state agriculture department to adopt new rules regarding inspections and enforcement of animal cruelty laws for fish raised by commercial companies.

But the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry rejected the petition in September, calling it “incomplete and defective,” primarily because Animal Outlook didn’t provide text for the rule it wants the state to adopt.

In the February lawsuit, Animal Outlook accuses the state of refusing to adopt standards for aquaculture facilities, failing to investigate the facilities and failing to enforce existing animal cruelty laws.

The agriculture department did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Animal Outlook describes itself as an entity with a mission to “protect farmed animals such as fish kept for aquaculture,” according to the suit. In addition to the group, Waldo County residents Dr. Sidney Block, Belfast business owner Eleanor Daniels and local nurse Eileen Wolper are plaintiffs in the case.

“The science is clear: fish feel pain,” said Jareb Gleckel, staff attorney at Animal Outlook, in a statement. “Even so, they’re often left out of conversations about animal protection — even by agencies with a legal obligation to protect them.”

The lawsuit comes at a time when Maine is poised to see an expansion in the number of large, industrial-scale aquaculture facilities. Plans for fish farms that grow salmon and yellowtail are in the works for Belfast, Bucksport and Jonesport.

In addition, American Aquafarms has said it plans to resubmit a proposal for a closed net pen salmon system in Frenchman Bay near Bar Harbor with a processing plant in Gouldsboro.

Those facilities could join Canadian company Cooke Aquaculture, which grows thousands of fish in net pens off the Maine coast and runs a hatchery in Bingham.

Animal Outlook, formerly known as Compassion Over Killing, made headlines in 2019 when it secretly filmed staffers inside Cooke’s Bingham hatchery showing salmon being treated inhumanely. The company acknowledged the incidents and vowed to make improvements.

State animal welfare officials investigated the incident and concluded that Cooke had changed its protocols. The former head of the state’s animal welfare program also recommended that another state agency — possibly marine resources or inland fisheries and wildlife — take over aquaculture facility inspections.

The February lawsuit asks the court to require the state to adopt rules “to protect the welfare of fish kept in Maine’s aquaculture facilities” and require the state to enforce existing animal cruelty laws.