Environmental groups now want to help defend the northern spotted owl’s much-litigated critical habitat, citing fears that the Trump administration will abandon its post.
Ten local and national green organizations on Wednesday joined a motion to intervene in a lawsuit previously brought by the timber industry and some Western counties. The underlying lawsuit challenges the Fish and Wildlife Service’s current designation of a 9.6-million-acre critical habitat for the federally protected owl.
For now, the Trump administration’s Justice Department is defending the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision. But if that changes, the environmental groups that include the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bird Alliance of Oregon and Cascadia Wildlands want to be able to pick up the torch.
“During anti-environmental administrations such as this one, intervention is often the only line of defense to uphold legally and scientifically grounded regulations,” Western Environmental Law Center attorney David Woodsmall said in an email Wednesday.
