Endangered Species Law & Policy

As we reported here, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review of the petition for writ of certiorari in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, No. 17-71, on January 22, 2018.  Petitioners challenge a 2-1 panel decision issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, affirming a rule issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), 77 Fed. Reg. 35118 (June 12, 2012), that designated critical habitat for the dusky gopher frog (Rana sevosa) and included areas within the critical habitat that the frog does not and could not inhabit. Specifically, the ...

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Principal Deputy Director Greg Sheehan recently issued a guidance memorandum to USFWS’ Regional Directors to clarify the appropriate trigger for an incidental take permit (ITP) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  While this guidance was directed internally to USFWS staff to aid in determination of whether project-related habitat modification is likely to result in take of a listed species, it also serves as a tool for project proponents to determine whether to seek an ITP and whether to cover a given species in that ITP.

The guidance ...

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has announced a 90-day comment period on proposed amendments to six Resource Management Plans (RMPs) and associated draft Environmental Impact Statements (DEISs) designed to protect the greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus).  In 2015, BLM finalized RMPs that addressed greater sage grouse conservation efforts across ten states.  The six RMPs that are the subject of this latest comment period address restrictions on energy development and other activities in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Northern California, Oregon, Wyoming and Utah

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued a final rule removing the lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris curasoae yerbabuenae) from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife due to recovery.  According to FWS, threats to the bat have been eliminated or reduced and populations are healthy and stable such that the species is no longer endangered or threatened with endangerment under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  It is the first bat species delisted from the ESA due to recovery.

When the bat was first listed in 1988, fewer than 1,000 bats at only 14 known roosts were ...

On April 19, 2018, the California Fish and Game Commission voted 4-0 to list the tricolored blackbird (Agelaius tricolor) as a threatened species. A statewide survey conducted in 2017 estimated the California population of the species to be over 175,000 birds. The species is broadly distributed in California, occurring in roughly 40 counties, though the bulk of the population resides in the Central Valley.

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned for the emergency listing of the species in 2015, based on a dramatic decline in population estimates from 2008 to 2011 and again ...

On April 17, 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) reached a negative 90-day finding on a petition to remove the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius preblei) from the List of Threatened and Endangered Species.  The Service’s finding was in response to a petition to delist the mouse filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation in 2017.  The Service concluded that the petition presented no new information indicating that delisting the mouse is warranted.

The Service rejected the petition’s taxonomic argument that the mouse is not a distinct subspecies that ...

On April 11, 2018, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed into law H.B. 2238, which amended the state’s administrative procedure laws to provide that courts are not required to defer to an agency’s legal interpretation in lawsuits over administrative decisions. The amendment effectively eliminated Chevron deference, which requires courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute.

The legal doctrine—named for the 1984 Supreme Court decision in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resource Defense Counsel, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-844 ...

On April 2, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed (pdf) a district court order directing that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau) (collectively, the Federal Agencies) conduct spill operations and fish monitoring at dams and related facilities in the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS).  The appeal was the latest development in a long-running dispute regarding salmon and steelhead species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that are impacted by FCRPS ...

On April 3, 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) published a final to rule listing the yellow lance mussel (Elliptio lanceolata) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  The final rule states that only seven populations of this freshwater mussel remain, all of which are located in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.  The listing was prompted by a mega-petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and several other environmental organizations in 2010 that included the mussel.  In September 2015, after litigation had been filed regarding the ...

On April 2, 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) proposed downlisting the Hawaiian goose (Branta sandvicensis), locally known as the nene, from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  The Service also proposed adopting a special rule pursuant to ESA section 4(d), known as a section 4(d) rule, allowing incidental take of nene for particular conservation and law enforcement functions.

The nene was federally listed as endangered in 1967, after the population fell below 30 individuals on Hawaii’s Big Island.  The Service instituted a ...