Endangered Species Law & Policy

Introduced by eight U.S. Representatives, HR 6485 (.pdf) provides that the inclusion of the gray wolf on any list of endangered or threatened species under Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) will have no force or effect. Titled the State Sovereignty Wildlife Management Act, the bill is one of several (see SB 3825 (.pdf) and SB 3864 (.pdf)) that has been introduced over the past few months with the goal of returning wolf management to the states. The proposed legislation is meant to improve the balance of both wolf and prey populations by allowing individual states to develop ...

On November 24, 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a final rule (PDF) designating 187,157 square miles of on- and off-shore habitat in northern Alaska as critical habitat for two populations of polar bear listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. 

The Service originally proposed to designate 200,541 square miles of critical habitat.  However, the final designation removed land that turned out to lie beyond the U.S. territorial waters, five U.S. Air Force (USAF) radar sites, the Native communities of Barrow and Kaktovik, and all existing man-made ...

On November 30, 2010, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service ("Service") designated approximately 783 acres of land in Riverside and San Diego Counties, California, as critical habitat for the plant San Diego ambrosia (Ambrosia pumila).  This is approximately 329 acres less than the Service had previously proposed.  The Service's designation excluded approximately 118 acres of critical habitat that fell within the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan.  In its final economic analysis, the ...

On November 23, 2010, in Humane Society of the United States v. Locke, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held (pdf) that NMFS violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) by failing to adequately explain its finding that sea lions are having a significant negative impact on the decline or recovery of salmonid species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the Columbia River. The ruling invalidated NMFS’s decision authorizing the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to lethally remove California sea lions from the Bonneville Dam area. The 2008 decision

Following the release of an incomplete draft of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), numerous stakeholders issued statements outlining their perspective on the status of the planning effort.  Statements were issued by a number of public water agencies that have provided most of the funding for the planning effort to date including Westlands Water District (pdf), Kern County Water Agency (pdf), Metropolitan Water District (pdf), and the State Water Contractors (pdf).  They were also released by other interested stakeholders, such as the Bay Institute and Environmental ...

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is a long-term conservation strategy designed to improve the status of species and natural communities covered by the plan and provide the basis for the issuance of endangered species permits for the operation of the state and federal water projects in California.  For a number of years, federal and state agencies, numerous public water agencies, and non-governmental organizations have worked to develop the BDCP.  On November 18, an incomplete draft of the BDCP was released to the public amid controversy as reported by numerous news outlets ...

The National Research Council (NRC) announced the formation of an ad hoc panel to review the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP).  The NRC explains that "[t]he panel’s review will be related to but be conducted separately from the on-going, more broadly focused NRC study entitled 'Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta.'"  Provisional appointments to the panel, including Dr. Henry J. Vaux of the University of California, Berkeley as Chair, are provided here.  There is a 20 day public comment period on the appointees that commenced on ...

The Fish and Wildlife Service recently published an updated list of plant and animal species native to the United States that are candidates for listing as threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.  The list, referred to as a Candidate Notice of Review or CNOR, is published periodically by the Service.  A press release announcing the release of the CNOR is available here.  Each species on the list is assigned a listing priority number (or LPN) based on its status and threats.  The CNOR includes five new candidates, changes the LPN for four existing candidates, and ...

In 2008, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration ("NOAA") authorized Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to "lethally remove" individual sea lions that congregate below the Bonneville Dam and continue to eat listed salmon and steelhead after non-lethal deterrence methods prove unsuccessful.  Under the current program, after a sea lion is identified and trapped it is either transported to a new location or euthanized.  Earlier this month, however, a task force convened at NOAA's request recommended that the controversial program ...

On October 29, 2010, the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation filed a complaint (pdf) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California against the U.S. Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for actions approving a 709-megawatt solar project in the Imperial Valley between Octotillo and El Centro in southern California. The complaint challenges the BLM’s final approval of Tessara’s (formerly Sterling Energy Systems) 6,144-acre Imperial Valley Solar Project on BLM land under the Federal Lands Policy and Management ...