Endangered Species Law & Policy

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has announced that it will remove the Johnston’s frankenia (Frankenia johnstonii) from the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Plants under the Endangered Species Act.  Johnson frankenia is a perennial shrub endemic to Starr, Webb and Zapata Counties in Texas and the northeastern part of the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Tamaulipas.  The shrub may be found in very salty soils in open, rocky, gypseous hillsides or saline flats.

USFWS listed the species in 1984, when there were five known populations of this perennial ...

On January 6, 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) issued its 12-month finding on the petition to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni) as an endangered or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, concluding that listing the wolf species throughout all or a significant portion of its range "is not warranted at this time."

The Alexander Archipelago wolf inhabits the mainland of southeastern Alaska, coastal British Columbia, and several island complexes.  On March 31, 2014, the Service issued a 90-day finding for the wolf stating that ...

On December 24, 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) released its annual Candidate Notice of Review (CNOR) summarizing the status of species that qualify as candidates for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  The 2015 CNOR identifies all species designated as candidates and explains the changes to the candidate list from the 2014 CNOR.  The Service assigns each candidate species a listing priority number (LPN) indicating the magnitude of the threat to a species’ continued existence (with one being the highest priority, and twelve being the lowest ...

Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a citizen plaintiff is required to provide a notice no less than 60-days before filing certain types of lawsuits against the federal government.  For example, a 60-day notice is required before a citizen plaintiff may file a lawsuit seeking to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to issue a decision on an ESA listing petition.  The primary purpose of the 60-day notice is to give the federal government an opportunity to review and, if necessary, correct the alleged ESA violation before incurring the cost of ...

After weeks of negotiations, on December 18, 2015, Congress finally approved the Fiscal Year 2016 omnibus spending bill.  One hotly debated issue related to the controversial greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus).  Republicans had hoped to include a rider rolling back the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service’s sage grouse conservation plans across 67 million acres in several Western states, including California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.  This rider was ultimately cut from the ...

On December 10, 2015, the California Fish and Game Commission (Commission) voted to advance the tricolored blackbird (Agelaius tricolor) as a candidate species for listing under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA).  The species is now subject to the same legal protections as endangered or threatened species under CESA.

As we previously reported, on June 11, 2015, the Commission voted not to make the tricolored blackbird a candidate for listing under CESA.  The species had been listed on an emergency basis in December 2014 but, as a result of the Commission’s inaction in ...

On December 3, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon’s denial of a preliminary injunction sought by environmental plaintiffs to enjoin the Douglas Fire Complex Recovery Project in Oregon’s Klamath Mountains.  Cascadia Wildlands v. Thrailkill, No. 14-35819 (9th Cir. Dec. 3, 2015).  The environmental groups asserted that the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) combined recovery project and logging plan to salvage acreage burned by the Douglas Complex Fire would irreparably harm the threatened ...

On November 30, 2015, the California Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Center for Biological Diversity v. California Department of Fish & Wildlife, Case No. S217763 (Nov. 30, 2015).  The decision comes at the conclusion of a nearly five-year legal battle over the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) approval of an environmental impact report (EIR) for the Newhall Ranch development project (Newhall Ranch) in Los Angeles County.  Newhall Ranch was approved as a mixed-use development on nearly 12,000 acres of land along the Santa Clarita River.  ...

On November 19, 2015, the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability (CESAR) filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) (collectively, Federal Defendants) for violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in connection with the installation, operation and removal of an emergency drought salinity barrier at West False River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern ...

In 2012, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) published a final rule designating 1,724 acres as critical habitat for the endangered Riverside fairy shrimp (Streptocephalus woottoni).  Included in that designation were 56 acres of private land, on which the plaintiff, Otay Mesa Property, L.P. (Otay Mesa), had planned to build a recycling facility and landfill.  Because of the land use restrictions potentially implicated by the critical habitat designation, Otay Mesa challenged the final rule in federal court, asserting that (1) the Service improperly ...