In November, environmental groups requested the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturn a district court decision and require the Santa Maria Valley River Water Conservation District to release water from the Twitchell Dam to protect the endangered steelhead trout.
On April 21, 2021, the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS)—a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—published a final rule in the Federal Register that designates critical habitat areas for humpback whales in the Pacific Ocean.
The dusky shark is a migratory predator that inhabits coastal waters from Nova Scotia to Brazil. The shark has an average length of twelve feet and weighs approximately 400 pounds. Commercial and recreational fishermen heavily fished the species at the end of the 20th Century, resulting in the species’ drastic population decline. The National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) designation of the shark as a “prohibited species” in 2000 made it illegal for fishermen to possess, sell, take, or retain them.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently announced its intent to withdraw a rule that would have suspended the drift gillnet swordfish fishery in California and Oregon if the fishery were to exceed a limit (or “hard cap”) on deaths and injuries caused to certain turtles and marine mammals over a two-year period. This action is in response to a decision handed down by a federal district court last month.
In August, NOAA Fisheries issued a permit to Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut to import five captive-born beluga whales from an amusement park in Ontario, Canada. Beluga whales, known for their white color and wide-ranging vocal sounds, are found in Alaskan waters and throughout the Arctic Ocean.
Bees aren’t fish. Obviously, right? Not so fast. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation (the Xerces Society), a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit, created quite a buzz in October 2018 when it petitioned the California Fish and Game Commission (the Commission) to include four species of bumblebee on the state’s endangered species list.
The United States District Court of Massachusetts dealt a blow to the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries and lobster fishing industry in a decision issued on April 30, 2020. The case, which was heard by District Judge Indira Talwani, concerned whether the agency had run afoul of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) by permitting the use of vertical buoy ropes in lobsterpot fishing despite the threat they pose to the North Atlantic Right Whale.
Controversy over the Trump Administration’s new Central Valley Water Plan Continues- California Questions Whether Fish Species Will be Adequately Protected
Last week, President Trump traveled to California to sign a memorandum implementing a new plan for the delivery of water to the state’s Central Valley. The water plan is controversial- while it will allow more water to reach Central Valley farmers, it will also impact fish species listed as threatened and endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). That is due to the fact the updated water plans will allow for more diversions from the state’s Bay-Delta watershed that serves as habitat for these listed species.
Last month, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) proposed a new rule to revise the critical habitat for the Southern Resident killer whale (Orcinus orca) in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. The proposed rule comes at a time when the species’ population size is at a historic low. In 1995, the highest census count for the species was 98.
On September 25, seventeen states from California to Massachusetts filed a complaint in federal court against the Trump administration hoping to stop recent regulatory revisions meant to substantially change how Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections are considered and enforced. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, follows a similar challenge by several environmental groups, including the Humane Society and Sierra Club, filed in August.
In the summer of 2019, both the state of Maine and the federal government became embroiled in a struggle between commercial fishermen and environmentalists over endangered North Atlantic right whale populations. As increasing numbers of right whales were found deceased in the waters in and around Maine, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began contemplating how to best protect the endangered whales.
Last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) listed the Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whale, a large baleen whale, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The agency determined that the whale is endangered “due to its small population size and restricted range, and the threats of energy exploration, development and production, oil spills and oil spill response, vessel collision, fishing gear entanglement, and anthropogenic noise.” The agency cited studies showing that there are fewer than 100 Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whales left in the population.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently vacated and remanded a case involving the critical habitat designation of the dusky gopher frog, a mid-size frog about three inches long that can be black, brown, or gray in color, giving the frog its “dusky” name. The frog gets its “gopher” name because it spends the majority of its time underground in burrows or stump holes in open canopy forests. One of the frog’s most recognizable and endearing traits is that it uses its front legs to cover its eyes when it feels threatened.
On November 28, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a months-old ban on the importation of Mexican shrimp and other seafood caught using gillnets. The import ban was promulgated in response to gillnets’ impact on the critically endangered vaquita porpoise—of which there are only fifteen members remaining in the wild. The species is killed at a rate of about fifty percent annually due to their accidental entanglement in gillnets used in the Upper Gulf of California, Mexico. This ruling marks the most recent in a line of failed legal challenges several U.S. governmental agencies have made in a hope to have the ban struck down.
