Endangered Species Law & Policy

On January 7, 2025, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Service) announced that, following the completion of the Service’s 5-year status review (5-year Review) of the golden-cheeked warbler (Setophaga chrysopharia) (GCWA), the agency is recommending the species be downlisted from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The species will remain listed as endangered unless and until the species is formally downlisted under the ESA pursuant to the necessary rulemaking process.

Citing better understanding of the GCWA and its habitat needs, along with ...

On May 19, 2022, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service) failure to make a timely 12-month finding on the group’s petition to list the dunes sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus) (DSL), which was submitted to the agency in 2018.

The DSL is no stranger to controversy. In 2002, CBD and others petitioned the Service to list the DSL due to alleged threats to the species’ habitat caused by oil and gas production. In 2004, the Service determined that ...

On June 29, 2021, fourteen members of Congress delivered a letter to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to use its authority to list the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on an emergency basis under section 4 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The letter, which garnered only Democratic support, notes that the population of western monarchs has sunk to under 2,000 individuals and states that immediate action is necessary to prevent extinction of the species.

Section 4 of the ESA authorizes the Service to immediately place a ...