Judge reverses Interior's decision to delist flying squirrel
Charleston Gazette|Ken Ward Jr.|March 29, 2011
Sullivan found the agency failed to follow its own recovery plan and based its removal of the squirrel from the list on other criteria. The law requires such decisions to be based on recovery plans, which cannot be revised without public input.
Sullivan found the agency failed to follow its own recovery plan and based its removal of the squirrel from the list on other criteria. The law requires such decisions to be based on recovery plans, which cannot be revised without public input.
A federal judge reversed a 2008 decision by the Interior Department to take the West Virginia northern flying squirrel off the Endangered Species List.
Read the ruling and other related documents
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C., ruled that the agency had skirted public review and comment requirements by trying to rewrite their own recovery plan after delisting the squirrel.
Sullivan found the agency failed to follow its own recovery plan and based its removal of the squirrel from the list on other criteria. The law requires such decisions to be based on recovery plans, which cannot be revised without public input.
Jessica Almy, a lawyer for conservation groups, said the decision has nationwide implications …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]A federal judge reversed a 2008 decision by the Interior Department to take the West Virginia northern flying squirrel off the Endangered Species List.
Read the ruling and other related documents
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C., ruled that the agency had skirted public review and comment requirements by trying to rewrite their own recovery plan after delisting the squirrel.
Sullivan found the agency failed to follow its own recovery plan and based its removal of the squirrel from the list on other criteria. The law requires such decisions to be based on recovery plans, which cannot be revised without public input.
Jessica Almy, a lawyer for conservation groups, said the decision has nationwide implications for implementation of endangered species requirements.
"The ruling means that scientifically based recovery criteria for endangered and threatened species, once having been adopted in the Fish and Wildlife Service's formal recovery plan, cannot be ignored due to political motivation or simple bureaucratic expediency -- in the service's haste to remove a species from the protections of the act," Almy said.
Vanessa Kauffman, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman, said her agency plans to review the ruling. She declined further comment.
Between the 1880s and the 1940s, industrial logging destroyed much of the squirrel's habitat. Biologists believe remaining squirrels have managed to survive in scattered patches of forest.
In 1985, Interior placed the animals on the Endangered Species List, citing declining habitat as a factor. Five years later, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a recovery plan for the squirrels.
A prior delisting report advised against the action. Two of the three outside experts brought in by Interior reached the same conclusion.
Agency officials later decided to use different criteria that indicated the squirrel was not as rare as previously thought.
Sullivan found officials did not follow the requirements of their own recovery plan, which said population trend data should be used when delisting the squirrel.