Posts from March 2014

 Yesterday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced (pdf) the final listing of the lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service identified drought and habitat fragmentation as threats to the species, and concluded the lesser prairie-chicken is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future.

In connection with the final listing decision, the Service also announced a final special rule under section 4(d) of the ESA that will retain some degree of state responsibility for managing the ...

Posted in Listing

On March 27, 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) issued a 12-month finding and proposed rule to reclassify the arroyo toad (Anaxyrus californicus), a species that is believed to exist exclusively in California, from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act.  The 12-month finding and proposed rule were initiated by a petition submitted in 2011 by The Pacific Legal Foundation requesting that the Service delist the Inyo California towhee and reclassify from endangered to threatened the arroyo toad, Indian Knob mountainbalm, Lane Mountain ...

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Tags: Listing

On an issue of first impression, a California court has created a judicial exception to the take prohibition in the state’s fully protected species statutes.  On March 20, 2014, the California Court of Appeal held that the live trapping and translocation of a fully protected species does not constitute prohibited take of the species.  Center for Biological Diversity v. California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, 2014 Cal.App. LEXIS 256 (March 20, 2014) (pdf).  The decision addresses a common conundrum in California:  whether actions to protect a species authorized by the state and federal ...

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Posted in Conservation

Last Thursday, several prominent conservation biologists in Australia called on the Australian government to allow certain endangered animals to become extinct in order to focus conservation efforts on reviving more vital species. The biologists argue that current Australian policies, such as mandatory recovery plans for all endangered species, may have consequences if they are not amended to allow for the "ecological triage of less-vital species. David Bowman, a professor at the University of Tasmania, supported the proposal to focus on the most vital species, noting that ...

Republican Congressman Chris Stewart (UT) recently introduced a bill (pdf) that would amend the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to require federal wildlife agencies to include the number of species found on state, tribal, and private lands in its official count when determining whether a species should be protected under the ESA.  Currently, the ESA does not include a specific requirement regarding how to account for a species’ population.  Rather, federal agencies are required to use the best scientific and commercial data available when determining whether a species is ...

Posted in Court Decisions

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision (pdf) relating to the 2008 biological opinion (BiOp) issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) regarding the effects of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project on the delta smelt. The long-awaited decision (oral argument was held on September 10, 2012) reversed in part and affirmed in part the district court’s judgment invalidating the BiOp and remanding it to the Service. The opinion is authored by Judge Bybee, with partial concurrence and partial dissent by both Judge ...

Posted in Conservation

In an article forthcoming in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Dr. Dennis Murphy and I examine a proposal by the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to amend the existing regulations that implement the interagency consultation process set out in Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act by codifying their pre-existing practice of using surrogates to express the amount or extent of incidental take of listed species.  We describe the proposed rule, place the use of surrogates for conservation planning in historical context, and ...

Posted in Conservation

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has announced the availability of a revised recovery plan for the pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus), a species that is found in the Missouri and Mississippi River basins, has been described as having a "unique dinosaur-like appearance," and has been listed as endangered since 1990.  As summarized by the Service, the revised recovery plan updates the "current understanding of the species life history requirements, identifies probable threats that were not originally recognized, includes revised recovery ...

Posted in Delisting

On February 26, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game petitioned (pdf) the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to remove the Central North Pacific subpopulation of humpback whales from the federal list of endangered or threatened species. In a press release, the director of Alaska’s Division of Wildlife Conservation declared the species a prime example of a recovered species that should be delisted from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) because the threat of extinction for this subpopulation is gone.

The entire North Pacific humpback whale species (Megaptera ...

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Tags: Delisting

 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) recently issued (pdf) a proposed rule to remove Eureka Valley evening-primrose (Oenothera avita ssp. eurekensis) and Eureka dune grass (Swallenia alexandrae) from the federal list of endangered species. The Service’s proposed rule follows its 12-month finding on the Pacific Legal Foundation’s petition to delist the species.

Eureka Valley evening-primrose and Eureka dune grass are endemic to three dune systems in the Eureka Valley, located in Inyo County, California. Eureka Valley is managed by the National Park Service (Park ...

Nossaman’s Endangered Species Law & Policy blog focuses on news, events, and policies affecting endangered species issues in California and throughout the United States. Topics include listing and critical habitat decisions, conservation and recovery planning, inter-agency consultation, and related developments in law, policy, and science. We also inform readers about regulatory and legislative developments, as well as key court decisions.

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