The court sets aside the critical habitat designation (CHD) for the southwestern willow flycatcher because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS') adoption of a baseline approach to measure the economic impact of the flycatcher CHD was an erroneous construction of the Endangered Species Act (ESA...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court order enjoining the future planting of disputed genetically engineered alfalfa seed pending the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's completion of an enivironmental impact statement. The district court applied the traditional balancing test, and no...

A district court set aside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS') decision not to designate critical habitat or to prepare a recovery plan for the jaguar. The FWS' critical habitat designation determination was not based on the best scientific evidence available and was inconsistent with the st...

A district court enjoined an energy company from building additional wind turbines at a wind farm project in West Virginia until it obtains an incidental take permit under the ESA for the Indiana bat, an endangered species. Indiana bats are present at the project site and the project is reasonably c...

A district court granted environmental groups’ motion for summary judgment finding that the NMFS and the FWS (collectively, the Services) acted arbitrarily and capriciously in failing to consider a mining company’s preexisting reclamation obligations as part of their environmental baseline analy...

A district court denied environmental groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin the use of genetically engineered sugar beets. On the likelihood of success on the merits, the court has already found that defendants, the USDA and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, viola...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the FWS' designation of critical habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl. A cattle growers' association argued that the FWS unlawfully designated areas containing no owls as "occupied" habitat. But the FWS' interpretation of the word "occupied" in the ESA was permissible. The FW...

The court affirmed the dismissal of a home builder association's claims that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in its promulgation of survey protocols to detect the endangered quino checkerspot butterfly in s...

The court holds that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA) Fisheries erred when it denied a fishing vessel's application for an Aleutian Islands brown king crab endorsement under the license limitation program for the Bearing Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish and crab fisheries. Th...

The court dismisses as moot an animal advocacy group's claims against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for denying their petition to list the trumpeter swan in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming as endangered or threatened and for authorizing the limited take of the swans during the 2001 and 2002 h...