Endangered Species Law & Policy

On February 2, 2011, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California approved a settlement agreement (pdf) between the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service ("Service"), the Center for Biological Diversity, and The Bay Institute, obligating the Service to reconsider the status of the longfin smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys), including the San Francisco Bay-Delta population.  Under the terms of the settlement, the Service must conduct a rangewide review of the species and issue a new listing determination by September 30, 2011.

The ...

The February 2011 edition of Environmental Management includes an article I co-authored with Dr. Dennis Murphy entitled, The Route to Best Science in Implementation of the Endangered Species Act’s Consultation Mandate: The Benefits of Structured Effects Analysis.  The principle purpose of the article is to facilitate the development of rigorous effects analyses under the consultation provisions in section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  In the article, we "assess effects analysis as a tool for using best science to guide agency decisions under the Act ...

On January 20, 2011, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ("FEMA") proposed (pdf) to settle another lawsuit challenging its implementation of the National Flood Insurance Program ("Program"), agreeing to consult with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service (the "Wildlife Agencies") regarding the Program's potential impacts on five species of sea turtles listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. 

The Program, which is administered by FEMA, enables property owners in participating communities to purchase flood insurance ...

The Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is facing a court-ordered January 31 deadline to decide whether to propose recommending the Pacific walrus for the endangered species list under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Earlier this month, the federal Marine Mammal Commission (Commission) issued a letter (PDF) to the Service recommending that it list the species as threatened. The Commission, which oversees marine mammal conservation policies carried out by federal regulatory agencies, cited loss of sea ice habitat as the most significant threat to the species’ ...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) recently announced that it will conduct in-depth status reviews for six California species currently listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service published (PDF) a 90-day finding in the Federal Register on January 19, 2011, concluding that a petition filed by Pacific Legal Foundation presented substantial scientific information indicating that delisting or reclassifying the species was warranted.

Pacific Legal Foundation petitioned the Service to delist the Eureka Valley evening ...

The Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced this week that it has opened a 30-day comment period on revisions to the proposed critical habitat designation for the Sonoma County Distinct Population Segment of the California tiger salamander, and the associated draft economic analysis of the revised proposal. The Service previously revised the proposed critical habitat designation in August 2009 -- after originally proposing the designation in August 2005 -- based on a settlement agreement on the August 2005 proposal. In this week’s notice of availability (PDF ...

On January 18, 2011, after slightly more than a quarter-century of protection, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service ("Service") announced that it will be removing the Maguire daisy (Erigeron maguirei) from the list of threatened and endangered species.  The Service recently concluded that the daisy population, which in 1985 consisted of only seven known plants, is presently comprised of over 162,000 individual plants, and "no longer meets the definition of endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act of 1973."  The Maguire daisy is just the 21st species that ...

On January 8, 2011, a federal district court overruled (pdf) a 2008 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to reduce the acreage of critical habitat designated for the San Bernardino kangaroo rat from 33,290 acres to 7,779 acres. The Service had initially designated the 33,290 acres in 2002, but decreased the amount (pdf) in 2008 after a lawsuit successfully challenged the designation. The district court’s ruling reinstates the area designated as critical habitat in the 2002 rule (pdf) in San Bernardino and Riverside counties until a revised designation is ...

On December 22, 2010, the Department of Justice filed a supplemental brief (PDF) in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia explaining the guidelines used by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in deciding if a species should be listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  The brief was filed in response to the court's request for a further explanation (PDF) regarding why FWS listed the polar bear as a threatened, and not an endangered, species.  Environmental groups had filed suit arguing the polar bear should be listed as ...

Aiming to restore federally-listed species, whose long-term viabilities in the Florida Keys are currently threatened by predation from non-native species and human-subsidized populations of native predators, the Fish and Wildlife Service has prepared a draft Integrated Predator Management Plan/Environmental Assessment (Plan/EA) (PDF), which it made available for public comment today on its website.  The Service claims that predation by the domestic cat and other exotic non-native species has impacted populations of natives species in the Florida Keys Wildlife Refuges ...