Status review initiated for Oregon Coast Coho

May 02, 2009 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

NOAA Fisheries announced this week that it's beginning a 5-year status review of the Oregon Coast coho ESU.  This ESU has been the focal point of much litigation over the last decade and a half.  Most recently, Trout Unlimited and other environmental organizations successfully challenged the Service's decision not to relist the ESU.  (PLF represented Alsea Valley Alliance as a defendant-intervenor in that case.  Unfortunately, PLF's appeal was dismissed as moot as the Service relisted the ESU while the appeal of the remand decision was still pending).

The five-year review initiation is not surprising, given the Service's observation in its February, 2008, relisting decision that, had the agency had more time to review a full administrative record (rather than the shortened period to review a truncated record in response to the remand order), it might have come out the other way.

{Hat tip:  The Columbia Basin Bulletin]