Court expands ESA protections on climate grounds

By Julie St. Louis

Citing imminent loss of the sea ice it needs to survive, the Ninth Circuit on Monday upheld federal protection of a subspecies of the Pacific bearded seal under the Endangered Species Act. The appeals court reversed a 2014 ruling that the National Marine Fisheries Service made an "arbitrary and capricious decision" when it listed bearded seals as threatened because loss of habitat to climate change was based on "hollow speculation. The Ninth Circuit found instead that the NMFS "listing decision was reasonable" for "'certain sea ice seal' species," and that it "clearly fulfilled its procedural and substantive obligations" under the Act. Furthermore, it held that "the administrative record demonstrated that NMFS provided a reasonable evidence-based justification for its mid-century and end-of-century sea ice predictions."......Endangered Species Act protections could affect offshore oil drilling already in the works and harvests by Alaska Native communities who depend on the seals' meat and fur for subsistence.........To Read More....