Environmentalists hauled the Fish and Wildlife Service into court Wednesday over the agency’s apparent delay in providing Endangered Species Act protections for the California spotted owl.
Citing a pair of ESA listing deadlines that passed more than two years ago, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the federal agency on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity. The missed-deadline suit seeks a final decision, one way or another, on whether to list two owl populations as threatened or endangered.
“For decades the Fish and Wildlife Service has dragged its feet in protecting endangered species, but the Trump administration has made this dire situation drastically worse,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species co-director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
In February 2023, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed protecting spotted owls in Southern California as endangered and those in the Sierra Nevada as threatened. Under the ESA, the agency then had one year to render a final listing decision.
