The Ninth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, held that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) did not violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) or NEPA when it authorized Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to kill up to 85 California sea lions annually at the Bonneville Dam in order to prote...

A district court upheld critical habitat protections for the marbled murrelet, a small seabird found in the Pacific Northwest that nests in old-growth forests. FWS designated critical habitat for the tri-state population of marbled murrelets in 1996. In 2010, FWS determined that delisting the murrel...

The Ninth Circuit dismissed a conservation group's lawsuit challenging DOI's diversion of water from Icicle Creek, a tributary of the Wenatchee River and the Columbia River, to the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery without a state permit. The group argued that DOI violated §8 of the Reclamation Ac...