ELR Citation: ELR 20226
No(s). 09-15214 (9th Cir. Aug 20, 2010)

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision upholding the NMFS' decision to list the steelhead, a type of Pacific salmon, as a threatened species in California's Central Valley. In listing the steelhead, the NMFS defined it as a distinct species under the ESA, separate from rainbow trout, another type of Pacific salmon that breeds with and looks like the steelhead. The separate listing was a departure from the prior NMFS policy of classifying interbreeding Pacific salmon as a single species. Irrigation districts argued that the listing violated the ESA because steelhead and rainbow trout interbreed, and the statute therefore requires the NMFS to treat them as a single species. But interbreeding is not alone determinative of whether organisms must be classified alike under the ESA where, as here, they develop and behave differently. The districts also argued that the NMFS violated the APA by failing to explain its decision to adopt a new policy for classifying the fish, but the NMFS provided an adequate rationale for its change of policy.