Center for Biological Diversity v. National Marine Fisheries Service

Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) agreed to a settlement resolving a lawsuit to compel NMFS to make a 12-month finding on whether listing of the smalltail shark as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act is warranted. CBD filed the lawsuit—in which CBD alleged that the species is threatened by climate change, overfishing, and other factors— in February 2025, more than two years after it submitted a listing petition and almost two years after NMFS issued a 90-day finding that listing “may be warranted.” In the settlement agreement, NMFS agreed to submit to the Office of the Federal Register by August 12, 2026 a 12-month finding as to whether listing is not warranted, warranted, or warranted but precluded by other pending proposals.

Center for Biological Diversity filed a suit in the federal district court for the District of Maryland asserting that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to issue a timely 12-month listing determination on the organization’s petition to list the smalltail shark. The complaint alleged that the smalltail shark—which is “found in estuaries and nearshore waters of the western Atlantic Ocean from Brazil to the Northern Gulf of Mexico”—had experienced an 80% population decline in the past three decades and that “its continued survival is threatened by climate change, overfishing, habitat degradation, and contamination exposure.”