Center for Biological Diversity v. Jewell

A group of environmental organizations challenged the withdrawal of a proposal to list the distinct population segment of the North American wolverine in the contiguous United States as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The complaint said that the wolverine resided in “high-altitude and high-latitude ecosystems characterized by deep snow and cold temperatures” and that its survival in the contiguous U.S. was threatened by climate change, as well as by other threats such as highly isolated and fragmented habitat, extremely low population numbers, intentional and incidental trapping, and disturbance by winter recreation activities. Plaintiffs alleged that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) based the withdrawal of the proposed listing on “manufactured uncertainty as to climate modeling and wolverine habitat needs and reached speculative conclusions about the wolverine’s future prospects that run directly counter to all of the evidence in the record.” Plaintiffs also alleged that the FWS “arbitrarily dismissed” the non-climate factors that compounded the threat to the wolverine.