Description: Action to compel determination on 2013 petition to list the Tinian monarch as endangered or threatened.
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Center for Biological Diversity v. Zinke
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 04/12/2018 Complaint Download Complaint filed. Center for Biological Diversity Asked Court to Compel Determination of Whether to Protect Tinian Monarch as Endangered or Threatened. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a lawsuit against Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to challenge their failure to make a mandatory finding on whether to list the Tinian monarch as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The complaint alleged that the Tinian monarch was a “small forest flycatcher native to Tinian Island, a small island in the western Pacific Ocean” and that the species was “in imminent danger of extinction due to the loss and degradation of its highly restricted range …, predation and competition from invasive species, axian poxvirus, and the effects of climate change.” The species was listed as endangered in 1970 but was declared fully recovered and delisted in 2004. The complaint alleged that CBD submitted a petition requesting that the Tinian monarch be listed as endangered or threatened in December 2013 and that the defendants had published a finding in September 201 that listing “may be warranted.” CBD asked the court to set a deadline for a response to its petition.