Description: Challenge to denial by state agency to list American pika as “threatened” species under California Endangered Species Act
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Center for Biological Diversity v. California Fish & Game Commission
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 10/19/2010 Order Petition granted. For the second time, a California state court ordered California’s Fish and Game Commission to study whether the America pika had become endangered under California’s Endangered Species Act because of climate change, holding that the Commission improperly refused to consider new scientific studies since environmental groups first petitioned for the species’ protection. 10/28/2009 Petition for Writ of Mandate Download Petition for writ of mandate filed. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a lawsuit challenging the California Fish and Game Commission’s rejection of its petition to protect the American pika under the California Endangered Species Act. The complaint alleged that the Commission ignored scientific evidence showing that climate change posed a threat to the pika, a hamster-like mammal that lives near mountain peaks in the western U.S. On October 1, 2009, the Commission finalized a decision that found that listing the pika as endangered or threatened was unwarranted. In May 2009, the same court found that the Commission had applied the wrong legal standard in rejecting the CBD’s petition in 2008 and ordered it to reconsider the request.