Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Northern District of California asking the court to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to make a final determination on the proposed listing of two distinct population segments (DPSs) of the California spotted owl under the Endangered Species Act. CBD alleged that FWS proposed to list the Sierra Nevada DPS as threatened and the Coastal-Southern California DPS as endangered in February 2023 in compliance with a settlement in an earlier case and failed to publish a final rule or withdraw the proposed rule by February 2024, in violation of the ESA. CBD alleged that it first submitted a petition to list the California spotted owl in April 2000, which FWS denied despite recognizing threats to the species from habitat modification and potential future threats from climate change and drought. CBD alleged that in the February 2023 proposed rule FWS cited threats from high-severity fire, tree mortality, drought, barred owls, and habitat fragmentation as a basis for listing.