Endangered Species Law & Policy

On August 22, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the decision of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Service) to deny a petition to remove the southwestern willow flycatcher (Empidonax traillii extimus) from the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service listed the southwestern willow flycatcher as an endangered species in 1995. The southwestern willow flycatcher is a small migratory bird that winters in Central and South America with a range in the United States that includes southern California, southern Nevada ...

On August 5, the United States District Court for the District of Montana issued an order overturning a determination made by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Service) during the Biden administration that listing the gray wolf (Canis lupus) in the western United States is not warranted and remanded the issue back to the Service for further consideration. The Service made the determination in response to two petitions to list separate wolf populations: one covering the Northern Rocky Mountains (the Northern Rocky Mountain population) and one covering the western United States (the ...

On May 12, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ordered the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Service) to reevaluate its decision not to list two species of Joshua tree—Yucca brevifolia (western Joshua tree) and Yucca jaegeriana (eastern Joshua tree)—as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The district court issued a judgment in the case on July 7, 2025. The federal government has 60 days from the date of judgment to decide whether to appeal the district court’s decision.

The case stems from WildEarth Guardian’s ...

On March 18, three advocacy organizations and their members filed a lawsuit challenging an offshore wind project against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The lawsuit alleges that the Biological Opinion (BiOp) issued by NMFS for Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project violates the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because it fails to adequately analyze the project's impacts on the endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis). … 

On March 26, 2015, House of Representatives Republican Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced a bill (H.R. 1667) to amend Section 4(b) of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to require the Secretary of Interior to make publicly available on the Internet the best scientific and commercial data available that are the basis for reach regulation, including each proposed regulation for listing decisions regarding endangered or threatened status for wildlife and plant species.  H.R. 1667 does not require the Secretary of the Interior to post information that is prohibited from disclosure ...