Articles

This week we filed our final trial court brief in our challenge to the Endangered Species Act listing of the coastal California gnatcatcher. We argue that the gnatcatcher should not be listed as a distinct “subspecies.” The Service and the environmental intervenors contend that the listing should be upheld because the Service used the b ...

Today, we filed our opening merits brief in our challenge to the federal Endangered Species Act listing of the coastal California gnatcatcher. Our lawsuit takes aim at the taxonomic foundation of the listing, namely, whether the gnatcatcher—a diminutive songbird that inhabits very prime real estate in parts of coastal and inland Southern Cali ...

When the Service rejected a delisting petition for the coastal California gnatcatcher, it acknowledged that it was not going to define “subspecies,” the very term upon which the denial rests, even while acknowledging that the term enjoys no commonly accepted meaning among scientists. Thus, by not defining that key term, the Service effe ...

This week, PLF submitted a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the agency’s denial last year of our petition to delist the coastal California gnatcatcher from the Endangered Species Act. The petition sought the gnatcatcher’s delisting on the basis of a 2013 nuclear DNA study, which undermines the gnatcatcher& ...

Today, the Fish & Wildlife Service announced a positive 90-day finding on our petition to delist the coastal California gnatcatcher.  The Service has determined that our petition presents substantial information indicating that the bird’s delisting may be warranted.  Our petition argues that a 2013 taxonomic study by Dr. Robert Zink of ...

Earlier this year, the Foundation filed a petition on behalf of property rights and building industry groups to challenge the continued listing of the coastal California gnatcatcher under the Endangered Species Act.  The nub of the petition is that new scientific studies—including a mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA analysis by Dr. Robert Zi ...

Today, PLF filed a new delisting petition with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, on behalf of interested property rights groups, requesting that the agency delist the coastal California gnatcatcher under the Endangered Species Act.  PLF argues in the petition (which is joined by the National Association of Home Builders and the Californ ...