Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Northern District of California to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a final listing rule and critical habitat designation for the monarch butterfly. The plaintiffs alleged that recent studies found that the butterfly “could face migratory collapse in less than 20 years because climate change is making butterflies’ winter habitat unsuitable”; the complaint also cited threats from industrial agriculture herbicide spraying and development and from neonicotinoid insecticides. FWS proposed to list the butterfly as threatened and to designate critical habitat in seven California counties on December 12, 2024. The plaintiffs alleged that the deadline under the Endangered Species Act for issuing a final rule was December 12, 2025. They asked the court to order the defendants to issue a final rule by a date certain.

Lawsuit to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a final listing rule and critical habitat designation for the monarch butterfly.

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

<p>This entry was provided by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Please see the terms of use for citation and licensing of third party data.</p>

Lawsuit Sought Final Listing Rule for Monarch Butterfly

Filed

United States of America

California

The Climate Litigation Database

Find climate change litigation data and indicators for {text}.

{text} litigation

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law provides Climate Litigation Database, a comprehensive database of US and Global climate change caselaw

Quickly and easily search through the complete text of thousands of climate change law and policy documents from every country.

Search the Climate Litigation Database

An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

Extreme weather refers to events where a weather variable exceeds (or falls below) a threshold. Meaning it is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern.

Terrestrial means "of the earth" and relates to the risks to ecological system that includes all living organisms and their interactions within land-based environments, such as forests, grasslands, and deserts.

This sector involves activities that impart knowledge and skills to individuals, including formal schooling, vocational training and educational support.

Activities that involve the cultivation of crops and raising of livestock for food, fibre, and other products essential for human life and industry.

Activities that relate to the production of goods and services from forests.

Any substance with chemical properties that can cause physical harm to people or damage the environment, including ammonia, carbon monoxide, phosphine, chlorine, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, pesticides, dioxins, microplastics, benzene, asbestos, aflatoxins, fluoride, methanol, and toxins from marine sources.

Lawsuit Sought Final Listing Rule for Monarch Butterfly

Risk

Economic sector

Finance