A federal appeals court is upholding the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to reduce federal protections for the American burying beetle.
In a ruling Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found the agency had complied with the Endangered Species Act when it shifted the designation of North America’s largest carrion beetle from “endangered” to “threatened” in 2020.
The decision upholds a lower court ruling affirming the downlisting in 2023.
While the beetle does face threats from rising temperatures in parts of its range in the next two decades, the species is not at imminent risk of going extinct, the court said in a partially split decision.
“Given the timeframe of the Service’s decision, the Downlisting Rule does not violate the Endangered Species Act, is supported by the administrative record, and was reasonably explained,” said Judge Patricia Millett, writing the opinion for the court.
Millett, an Obama appointee, noted that the effects of the changed listing were tempered by the fact that the agency had already initiated a new periodic review of the species’ status.
She also found that the Center for Biological Diversity, which had sued to challenge the threatened status of the beetle, did not have standing to also challenge a rule setting specific protections for the beetle in part of its range.
Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, who was also nominated by former President Barack Obama, joined the opinion. Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, wrote a partial dissent.
Pan argued that the decision to list the beetle as threatened was “neither reasonable nor reasonably explained.” She said she would have tossed out the 2020 downlisting.
The beetle was first listed as endangered in 1989 after it lost 90 percent of its historical range spanning 35 states and three Canadian provinces.
Following a request to delist the species in 2015 from the oil and gas industry, the Fish and Wildlife Service found that the beetle had recovered parts of its historical range in eight states.
The agency determined that the beetle was not currently at risk of extinction but that both land use and the effects of climate change would make it “likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future.”
The Center for Biological Diversity had argued the decision went against the “plain language” of the Endangered Species Act, and it noted that the beetle is expected to lose nearly 60 percent of its remaining range in as soon as 15 years.
“Based on the best available science, the Beetle is therefore facing extinction in a significant portion of its range within the foreseeable future,” the environmental group wrote in a brief to the court.
The agency and the Center for Biological Diversity could not be immediately reached for comment.
