Endangered Species Law & Policy

On the heels of the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) decision not to list the greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) under the Endangered Species Act and the concurrent Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issuance of Records of Decision on over 98 land use plans focused on sagebrush habitat, the United States Geological Survey (USGS)  and many other agencies announced their issuance of part one of a three-part handbook series focused on sagebrush steppe ecosystems.  Several federal and state entities, including the U.S. Joint Fire Science Program and National ...

On October 16, 2015, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced the signing of a conservation agreement intended to provide greater protections and more flexibility in the management of impacts to sensitive species and their habitats.  The conservation agreement, called the Durability Agreement, will allow CDFW to use BLM lands for various conservation actions, and occasionally for project-level mitigation to meet California state standards.  The Durability Agreement, developed during coordination between CDFW ...

In a notice published on October 8, 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced its proposed 12-month finding on the Center for Biological Diversity’s (CBD) petition to list the Sierra Nevada red fox (Vulpes vulpes necator) as endangered or threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. The Service determined that listing of the subspecies is not warranted because the fox is more abundant than previously believed and because known and potential stressors to the fox are not likely to cause the subspecies to become endangered in the foreseeable future ...

During the last week of its fiscal year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) made several findings under section 4 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to meet its obligations under the 2011 listing settlement workplan.  Below is a brief summary of these findings.

On September 29, 2015, the Service published a proposed rule to list four plant species from South Florida (specifically Miami-Dade and Monroe counties).  These include the Big Pine partridge pea (Chamaecrista lineata var. keyensis), the wedge spurge (Chamaesyce deltoidea ssp. Serpyllum) the sand flax (Linum ...