Description: Lawsuit to compel a listing determination on the Arizona eryngo, a plant species.
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Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 07/12/2019 Complaint Download Complaint filed. Lawsuit Filed to Compel Listing Decision on Plant Species in Desert Southwest. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Maricopa Audubon Society filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine whether to list the Arizona eryngo—a plant species with only two remaining populations in the U.S.—as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The plaintiffs asserted that the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to issue a 12-month final determination in response to the plaintiffs’ submission of a listing petition in April 2018. The plaintiffs alleged that the Arizona eryngo can live “only in silty groundwater-fed wetlands unique to the desert Southwest, known as ciénegas” and that “ciénegas have been nearly wiped out over the past century by groundwater pumping, overgrazing, altered patterns of water infiltration and runoff, and reductions in stream baseflows.” The complaint alleged that in addition to habitat modification, climate change also posed one of the greatest threats to the eryngo and its habitat.