Friends of Animals v. FWS
The Ninth Circuit held that FWS did not violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) when it authorized the taking of the barred owl to help the recovery of the spotted owl. The spotted owl was listed as endangered under the ESA in 1990, and it was later determined that one of the factors affecting ...
Rocky Mountain Wild, Inc. v. U.S. Forest Service
The Tenth Circuit held that the Forest Service does not have to fulfill an environmental group's FOIA request for documents created by a third-party contractor related to a land exchange in Colorado. At the center of the case was an agreement between a developer and the Forest Service to exchange pr...
Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Idaho
The Ninth Circuit held that portions of Idaho’s Agricultural Security Act violate the First Amendment. The law, enacted after a secretly-filmed expose of operations at an Idaho dairy farm went live on the internet, broadly criminalizes making misrepresentations to access an agricultural production...
Western Watersheds Project v. Grimm
A district court held that USDA Wildlife Services did not violate NEPA with its lethal wolf management policy in Idaho. In 2011, the gray wolf was delisted under the ESA in Idaho; as a result, management of the wolf population was returned to the state. Wildlife Services conducted an EA in 2011 conc...