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

Center for Biological Diversity voluntarily withdrew an Endangered Species Act lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) after FWS published the required 90-day finding in response to CBD’s April 2024 petition to list the gray cat’s eye as threatened or endangered. FWS published a finding on January 26, 2026 in which it announced that CBD’s petition presented substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that listing may be warranted. In its complaint, CBD alleged that the flower, which is found only on dunes along the Columbia River in central Washington, faces threats that include climate change-related disruption to groundwater regimes.

Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Arizona to compel issuance of an initial determination on its April 2024 petition to list the gray cat’s eye under the Endangered Species Act. The complaint alleged that gray cat’s eye is a rare flower found only on dunes along the Columbia River in central Washington. CBD alleged that the plant faces threats from loss of sand supply due to the conversion of large portions of the lower Columbia Basin to industrial-scale agriculture as well as other factors including wildfires, declines in pollinating insects, and impacts from climate change that disrupt groundwater regimes.