Western Environmental Law Center

In a historic ruling today, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed 6-1 the decision of the district court in the landmark case, Held v. State of Montana, siding with the 16 youth plaintiffs who had sued the state over its promotion of fossil fuel extraction and its failure to consider climate change impacts in its decision-making. This ruling, the first of its kind from a state supreme court, affirms the district court’s ruling that the state’s acts in perpetuating a fossil fuel energy system with blind eyes violated the youth plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment, dignity, and safety, reinforcing the growing legal momentum behind youth-led climate justice movements.

District Court Judge Kathy Seeley’s August 2023 decision, upheld today, made Held v. State of Montana the first youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit in U.S. history to go to trial and secure a victory. In her ruling, Judge Seeley stated: “Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere exacerbates impacts to the climate. Plaintiffs’ injuries will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change.” Judge Seeley also ruled that the fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment enshrined in Montana’s Constitution incorporates the climate system and that Montana’s environment is unconstitutionally degraded due to the current level of greenhouse gases concentrations and climate impacts.

The Montana Supreme Court today upheld these findings, ruling that state laws prohibiting the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions or climate impacts during fossil fuel permitting decisions and laws preventing constitutional remedies in court were unconstitutional. Today’s ruling requires the state to ensure it considers the environmental and public health consequences, and significantly the harm to children, of each proposed fossil fuel project, marking a turning point in Montana’s energy policy.

“With the ruling now in place, the Montana Supreme Court’s decision compels the state to carefully assess the greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts of all future fossil fuel permits,” said Melissa Hornbein, senior attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center and attorney for the plaintiffs. “Specifically, Montana’s regulatory agencies must now evaluate the potential harm to the environment and the health and safety of the state’s children from any new fossil fuel projects, and determine whether the project can be justified in light of the ongoing unconstitutional degradation of Montana’s environment, natural resources, and climate. This ruling clarifies that the Constitution sets a clear directive for Montana to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, which are among the highest in the nation on a per capita basis, and to transition to a clean, renewable energy future.”

“This is a monumental moment for Montana, our youth, and the future of our planet,” said Nate Bellinger, lead counsel to the plaintiffs. “Today, the Montana Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutional rights of youth to a safe and livable climate, confirming that the future of our children cannot be sacrificed for fossil fuel interests. This is a victory for young people and for generations to come. The court said loud and clear: Montana’s Constitution does not grant the state a free pass to ignore climate change because others fail to act–this landmark decision underscores the state’s affirmative duty to lead by example.”

The ruling comes after extensive testimony from the youth plaintiffs, who shared personal stories of how climate change is already affecting their health, income, and heritage—via extreme summer heat, smoke-filled skies, major floods, the disruption of Native cultural practices tied to seasonal cycles, and more. As Judge Seeley noted in her decision, the plaintiffs are “disproportionately harmed by fossil fuel pollution and climate impacts,” and the state’s failure to consider these impacts when permitting fossil fuel projects was a violation of their constitutional rights.

Rikki Held, named plaintiff in the case, expressed her deep gratitude for the high court’s decision: “This ruling is a victory not just for us, but for every young person whose future is threatened by climate change. We have been heard, and today the Montana Supreme Court has affirmed that our rights to a safe and healthy climate cannot be ignored.”

As the district court found and the Montana Supreme Court has now affirmed, atmospheric greenhouse gasses are already infringing on Montanans’ constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment. Every additional ton of carbon dioxide exacerbates climate impacts, leading to more severe and irreversible harms. The state must now take responsibility for the long-term health of its people and its natural resources, including its rivers, lakes, glaciers, and wildlife. The ruling makes clear that continuing to promote fossil fuel projects at the expense of the fundamental rights of current and future generations is no longer permissible.

The Court wrote: “We reject the argument that the delegates—intending the strongest, all-encompassing environmental protections in the nation, both anticipatory and preventative, for present and future generations—would grant the State a free pass to pollute the Montana environment just because the rest of the world insisted on doing so. The District Court’s conclusion of law is affirmed: Montana’s right to a clean and healthful environment and environmental life support system includes a stable climate system, which is clearly within the object and true principles of the Framers inclusion of the right to a clean and healthful environment.” (Opinion at ¶ 30)

The Court also wrote: “The State repeatedly tries to redirect our focus to global climate change and the staggering magnitude of the issue confronting the world in addressing it. The State argues that it should not have to address its affirmative duty to a clean and healthful environment because even if Montana addresses its contribution to climate change, it will still be a problem if the rest of the world has not reduced its emissions. This is akin to the old ad populum fallacy: ‘If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?’ . . . Plaintiffs may enforce their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment against the State, which owes them that affirmative duty, without requiring everyone else to stop jumping off bridges or adding fuel to the fire. . . . Otherwise, the right to a clean and healthful environment is meaningless.” (Opinion at ¶ 49)

“This ruling is not just a win for Montana—it’s a signal to the world that youth-led climate action is powerful and effective,” said plaintiff Kian. “We hope this decision inspires others across the country and beyond to stand up for their rights to a livable climate. Just as the youth plaintiffs in Navahine v. Hawaii Department of Transportation secured historic climate justice through a settlement this past June, the eyes of the world are now on us, seeing how youth-driven legal action can create real change.”

Moving forward, the plaintiffs and their legal team are committed to ensuring the full implementation of the ruling. If necessary, they are prepared to take further legal action to ensure compliance. However, given the economic and environmental opportunities that come with transitioning to renewable energy, they are hopeful that such actions will not be necessary.

“This is a time for Montana to embrace the future—clean energy offers economic benefits and new jobs,” said plaintiff Georgi. “We look forward to working with the state to implement this transition and ensure that Montana leads the way in tackling the climate crisis.”

The plaintiffs were elated by the ruling and expressed their gratitude to everyone who helped make their win possible.

“This will forever be in the court record, despite any continued rhetoric of denial coming from people in power in the state. The facts will remain. I am thrilled that the Montana Supreme Court has sided with Montana citizens to protect the people and the places we love,” said plaintiff Grace

“This ruling is a reigniting of hope and this is a call to action for all Montanans. This is a monumental win today. Montana really is going to be held accountable for its unconstitutional actions,” said plaintiff Olivia

Montana now stands at a crossroads: it can continue to support fossil fuel extraction, transportation, and combustion with all the environmental, human health, and climate risks that entails, or it can rise to the challenge of creating a clean energy future. This ruling forces the state to begin that transition, aligning Montana’s policies with its constitutional obligation to conserve and maintain a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.

Contacts:
Melissa Hornbein, Western Environmental Law Center, hornbein@westernlaw.org, 406.708.3058
Helen Britto, Our Children’s Trust, helen@ourchildrenstrust.org, 925.588.1171
Nate Bellinger, Our Children’s Trust, lead counsel, nate@ourchildrenstrust.org, 413.687.1668

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Outgoing fossil fuel booster Sen. Joe Manchin’s latest effort at passing “permitting reform,” characterized as a “Dirty Deal” because it would grease the wheels for expanded oil and gas drilling on public lands and mandate liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports as called for by Project 2025, has failed.

“A just transition demands we center people and place in all climate action,” said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center. “Unfortunately, this bill was a Trojan horse for fossil fuels that would have wreaked havoc in the West, harming public lands and encouraging new fossil fuels development in communities already overburdened by a legacy of ill-considered U.S. energy policy.”

Fossil fuel interests, from the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, strongly supported the Energy Permitting Reform Act. Unfortunately, so did renewables interests, who had lobbied for the bill’s electricity transmission reforms.

“It is an imperative that we build out renewable energy and transmission infrastructure,” Schlenker-Goodrich emphasized. “But a senseless ‘build, baby, build’ mentality that provides ever more concessions to the very fossil fuel interests causing the climate crisis and prioritizes the interests of developers over people and place would undermine, not accelerate, a just transition.”

While EPRA has failed, Washington insiders have warned that Congress could mine the bill and other parts of anti-environmental legislation pending in the House Committee on Natural Resources, bootstrapping those provisions onto other, must-pass legislation.

“Vigilance is needed. We urge climate champions in Congress to stand tall for love of the land, waters, wildlife, and people of the West and fight any attempts to roll back bedrock environmental and community protections,” said Schlenker-Goodrich. “The path ahead is rough, but we must traverse it together with the long-sighted wisdom that a just transition must be rooted in people and place, not the demands of energy developers.”

Contact:
Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, Western Environmental Law Center, 575-751-0351, eriksg@westernlaw.org

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As morning light arrives just behind the hills of Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, a distant song greets the gathering crowd. A hundred determined watchers bearing scopes and their trusty cameras line one plateau and another, eager to catch their first glimpse of the mysterious vocalists. Soon, whispered cries of joy begin — the Junction Butte pack is here and howling!  

Two, three, then four grey wolves in shades of tan, black, and dusty silver run into view and then disperse between patches of sagebrush. Like a crew of your hungry relatives meeting up at the local diner for breakfast, they take turns greeting and jostling each other before crossing the open field to check out the day’s offerings. More join their company, and soon small groups form constellations in the center of our binoculars — 11 shining stars to the crew of overjoyed, albeit freezing, observers.   

Adjusting the focus of our lenses, our eyes find the familiar face of a Yellowstone legend: alpha female 907. As the leader of her pack and an elder wolf of 11 years, 907’s resilience fascinates scientists and visitors alike as she continues to thrive and raise pups. She moves along with the pack today, a little slower perhaps than she once did – but with no less gravitas. Pausing in the middle of a grassy plateau, younger packmates approach her one by one, each raising their snout to meet hers in a sign of respect. Most of our mothers would expect no less.

The pack journeys northward across the many-tiered meadow, navigating between herds of bison and swooping ravens, covering the distance quickly in an organized formation. Meanwhile, in our own neat rows, today’s crew of wolf watchers remains entranced as they do by the tens of thousands every year.   

Wildlife enthusiasts, photographers, advocates, and curious observers of every kind travel from around the world for moments like this. These are the everyday movements of a small group of canines, and yet — they hold something much deeper. Beyond their irreplaceable ecological value, wolves call to the wildness within each of us. To witness them roam is to know a precious, ancient pattern remains in a world where such accounts feel lost to history. But to be honest — they came close.   

Though the morning held merely a hearty group outing for the Junction wolves, their lives and freedom remain on the knife’s edge. Twenty miles north, where gates and wooden signs welcome geyser-seeking waves of visitors, wolves are met with a very different reception. Beyond park borders, vital protections creating the only path forward for the species’ survival fall away, replaced with a terrible thirst for lupine blood.  

Fewer than 200 wolves remain in the Yellowstone region, yet every year, there are those keeping sharp eyes on the park’s border, waiting for any opportunity to seize a wolf for their own trophy collection. In 2022, hunters killed 25 pack members — 20% of Yellowstone’s population. These kills were not the result of any conflict with ranching or humans, but rather as a part of Montana and Idaho’s legal sanctions for wolf hunting — 20 per person every year in Montana, unlimited in Idaho. And without stronger federal protections, this will continue, with dire impacts on the already scant population.   

To paraphrase something Rick McIntyre, world-renowned wolf interpreter and author of the best-selling Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, shared with me over a pair of scopes last weekend: Isn’t it ironic that a single Yellowstone grey wolf, worth $850,000+ annually in tourist earnings alone, could be killed for the price of a single $150 hunting permit just outside the slim lines of its own neighborhood?* 

*and for even less in other places… 

The next day, Story Warren (my friend, fellow Oregon Wildlife Coalition member, and long-time wolf advocate for wolves) and I enter the park early once again, eyes and ears open for any signs of our favorite roaming carnivores. After tracking two group howls from one overlook to the next, we spot a coyote cheerily toting its breakfast burrito — er, deer flank — up from a riverbed and into the forest above. Taking a break to observe the area and chat with fellow watchers, a sudden movement catches our eyes: “Wolf!” we cry as a lone black yearling arrives in the basin just below our post. With nimble strides, the healthy young male (a member of the Rescue pack, I later learn) cuts an impressive figure as it forges ahead in the mid-morning light.  

He will spend the next few months hunting, exploring, and becoming a powerful adult wolf in his own right, perhaps supporting his family of origin or starting a pack of his own. But this fate, even the hope for a young wolf to reach maturity, rests only partially in his capable paws. To survive at all outside the confines of Yellowstone, he must evade hunters at every corner, dodge landowners unwilling to coexist and flee at all costs from Wildlife Services, the federal agency 1) licensed to kill hundreds of thousands of native animals every year, 2) with anything from traps and cyanide canisters to shooting them from a helicopter, and 3) even without evidence of livestock predation. The stakes are high, and his chances slim — but he’ll never give up the fight for his existence out here on the western horizon. And we’re not giving up either.   

At WELC, our team has been working for decades to achieve better protections for wolves across the country. We’re combating the lethal tactics of Wildlife Services and finding ways to steer ranchers toward effective coexistence strategies. We’re continuing to build on the 2022 legal victory that restored protections for wolves in their historic range—other than the northern Rockies wolves which Congress delisted in 2011. Because that win is on appeal and therefore tenuous, we filed litigation earlier this year to restore Endangered Species Act protections for wolves West-wide, which would include northern Rockies wolves. As we advance these cases, we are also actively defending wolf reintroduction efforts in Colorado as well as Mexican wolves as they slowly return to their native ranges in the Southwest. 

But with plans like Project 2025 directly targeting wolves for delisting across the lower 48 states, we need people like you on our side more than ever — wildlife enthusiasts, ecosystem defenders, or maybe just someone who doesn’t appreciate the needless destruction of a beautiful creature responsible for humanity’s best friend, Fido.  

As a public interest law firm, our work is made possible thanks to generous supporters like you. This year, donate by December 31st and your contribution will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to a total of $88,500 by our board of directors in our largest board match ever! 

If you’ve ever known and loved a dog, you’ve seen their emotions, intelligence, goofiness, and loyalty on a daily basis. Wolves are nothing less than dogs’ powerful cousins, equipped with equally unique personalities, intelligence, and devotion to family. Yet, humans choose to vilify them for their very instinctual behavior as carnivores, and for being good at what they do.  

Aside from substantial intrinsic and tourism values, gray wolves are really important parts of nature’s network, functioning as expert landscape managers. They balance wildlife populations which in turn shapes the landscape, supporting the evolution of healthy ungulates and curbing the impact of rampant grazing (this second effect then triggers better carbon storage capabilities for plants, as vegetation can more easily accumulate!) and spread of diseases from ungulates to domestic animals and human communities. They provide food for important carrion species, from ravens and eagles to foxes and endangered fishers, who are particularly impacted by the shorter winters fueled by climate change.   

And that’s just to name a few of gray wolves’ highly practical benefits to fellow species and the landscapes they call home. It’s long past time for us to return their good deeds by taking action and reminding the world: wolves belong. 

• Write a letter to your representative! It’s easier than you think. Simply state your name, where you live, and respectfully ask your rep to vote for policies that protect wolves from hunting and trapping. Then, add a sentence or two about why wolves matter to you personally. This could include: 1) Wolves are objectively family oriented, intelligent animals with unique personalities and should be protected, 2) As a top predator, wolves are an important species ecologically to many habitats and other species, 3) Nonlethal, proactive livestock husbandry strategies are far more effective at preventing conflict than randomly killing wolves, or 4) Wolves should not be freely hunted given their low population numbers in many of their historic ranges. Bonus points if it’s handwritten, but email is great too! Find your representative here or on your state legislature website. 
• If you live in or near wolf habitat, speak up to your local fish and wildlife agencies and their board/commission to advocate for positive wolf management and coexistence strategies! 
• Vote for representatives who care about climate and the biodiversity crisis. 
• Donate or volunteer to support the work of advocacy and conservation organizations protecting wolves across the country. In December, every gift made to WELC’s work will be DOUBLED up to $86,000 thanks to a special matching program!  
• Keep learning about wolves and their preservation! Read the Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, learn more through the wide array of online resources available, or join a wildlife community science project near you. 

Let’s keep howling together for a livable future – for wildlife and for each other. 
– Suze Wehr, communications and advocacy associate

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On December 9th, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final designation decision that stormwater discharges from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Los Alamos County are contributing to violations of water quality standards and that these discharges require a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under the federal Clean Water Act. The exceedances for some pollutants are tens of thousands of times greater than water quality standards. This action comes as a result of 10 years of advocacy and legal challenges brought by Amigos Bravos, represented by Western Environmental Law Center, to force the agency to address extremely high urban stormwater pollution in Los Alamos County.

As required by the Clean Water Act, New Mexico set standards to ensure the state’s rivers, streams and lakes are clean enough to allow the public to use these waters for drinking, swimming, boating, and other activities, and to support healthy populations of fish and wildlife. To ensure these standards are met, the Clean Water Act requires the EPA to regulate stormwater runoff when that runoff is making the water unsafe.

“After almost a decade of advocacy we are pleased that EPA has responded to our petition and determined that toxic storm water discharges to tributaries to the Rio Grande on the Pajarito Plateau must be more strictly regulated,” said Rachel Conn, deputy director of Amigos Bravos. EPA has taken an important step in regulating toxic discharges into the Upper Rio Grande which will protect the communities that depend on clean water for drinking, recreation, and ceremonial purposes. While we are pleased about the final designation, EPA is limited in what they can do by the 2023 US Supreme Court’s Sackett vs EPA decision which leaves many of the smaller waterways across the state inadequately protected.”

“While EPA took an important step forward today in regulating these small waterways on the Pajarito Plateau, there is more work to do at the state and federal level to ensure downstream communities are protected from the impacts of unregulated discharge of pollutants to our waters,” said Andrew Hawley, senior attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center. EPA’s designation of so many miles of streams as merely conveyances, reducing them to nothing more than pipes that carry pollutants downstream, shows the need for strong state action to develop a surface water permitting program to  protect these important water bodies and a complete rethinking at a national level of how we protect water quality, and the communities, fish, and wildlife that depend on clean, healthy watersheds.”

The New Mexico Environment Department’s (NMED) data show dramatic exceedances of the state’s PCB human health water quality limits. PCB levels in Los Alamos Canyon are more than 11,000 times greater than the New Mexico Human Health water quality criteria and 51 times greater than the New Mexico Wildlife Habitat water quality criteria. Sandia Canyon shows PCB contamination more than 14,000 times greater than the New Mexico Human Health water quality criteria and 66 times greater than the New Mexico Wildlife Habitat water quality criteria. PCBs levels in Pueblo Canyon are more than 3,500 times greater than the New Mexico Human Health water quality criteria and 16 times greater than the New Mexico Wildlife Habitat water quality criteria. These three drainages are all heavily influenced by urban stormwater runoff.

The state’s 303d/305b report documents many more exceedances of standards – for a variety of pollutants and locations. Pajarito Canyon is impaired for gross alpha radiation, aluminum, PCBs, silver, cyanide, mercury, and copper. Mortandad Canyon is high in PCBs, copper, and gross alpha radiation pollution. LANL’s own documents confirm these findings and identify urban runoff as the culprit for many of these pollutants.

Contacts:

Rachel Conn, Amigos Bravos, 575-770-8327, rconn@amigosbravos.org

Andrew Hawley, Western Environmental Law Center, 206-487-7250, hawley@westernlaw.org

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Community and conservation groups successfully defended a “proximity proposal” and other provisions of New Mexico’s ozone precursor rule from an Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico (IPANM) challenge before the New Mexico Court of Appeals. IPANM’s legal challenge was rejected by the New Mexico Court of Appeals.  The “proximity proposal” requires increased leak detection and repair (LDAR) for oil and gas wells within 1,000 feet of homes, schools, and businesses. The leak detection required will reduce the oil and gas industry’s emissions of pollutants—volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides that harm human health. Evidence in the record demonstrated that people who live within 1,000 feet of oil and gas wells covered by the rule are disproportionately people of color, Native American, and/or low income in New Mexico.

“I’m proud to have successfully defended on behalf of our dedicated group of client organizations a scattershot appeal of New Mexico’s ozone precursor rule from IPANM,” said Western Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Tannis Fox. “The rule requires stringent controls on emissions of volatile organic compounds and nitrous oxides that, combined with sunlight, create ground-level ozone, a human health threat. The rule will help protect frontline communities against the harms of oil and gas operations. And it will significantly reduce emissions of methane, one of the most significant contributors to climate change.”

“Our indigenous communities face the brunt of oil and gas pollution in the four corners,” said Ahtza Chavez, executive director of Naeva. “The minimum that industrial extractors can do is protect our people who live within a thousand feet of an oil or gas well. This is basic respect and protection of our community health. We’re grateful to the courts for defending these excellent rules.”

The groups’ defense also helped ensure the rule applies to oil and gas wells in Rio Arriba and Chavez counties, another unsuccessful challenge brought by IPANM.

“When the oil and gas Industry extracts our natural resources off of our public lands for their own private profit and then opposes protecting the people in homes, schools and  business within 1,000 of a well, you really have to wonder,” said Camilla Feibelman, director of the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter. “Our state ozone rules protect the air and the health of our communities and we’re grateful that the court stood with our people.”

“Communities in New Mexico that are made up primarily of Indigenous, low-income, and people of color disproportionately experience the effects of oil and gas well leaks,” said Michael Leon Guerrero, sustainable economy policy advisor for the Center for Civic Policy. “For too long, our communities have gone without basic protections. That’s why this win is so critical to us. The industry must, at the very least, be expected to detect leaks within 1000 feet of places where New Mexicans reside. We are grateful that the courts have stood with New Mexicans on this ruling.”

“Air pollution remains one of the most serious threats to places like Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which ranks 5th in the nation for unhealthy air according to our report. Pollution clouds stunning vistas, makes air dangerous for park visitors and rangers to breathe, and poses serious threats to nature and wildlife,” said Maude Dinan, New Mexico program manager for National Parks Conservation Association. “That’s why we are thrilled that New Mexico’s ozone precursor rule has been upheld. By protecting our parks from harmful oil and gas pollution, we ensure clear skies and healthy air for our national parks and communities.”

Conservation Voters New Mexico, Diné C.A.R.E., Earthworks, National Parks Conservation Association, National Resources Defense Council, San Juan Citizens Alliance, 350 New Mexico, and 350 Santa Fe were represented in the matter by attorneys from Western Environmental Law Center. The Center for Civic Policy and Naeva were represented by the University of New Mexico Natural Resources and Environmental Law Clinic.

Contacts:

Tannis Fox, Western Environmental Law Center, 505-629-0732, fox@westernlaw.org

Camilla Feibelman, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, 505-715-8388, camilla.feibelman@sierraclub.org

Caitlyn Burford, National Parks Conservation Association, 541-371-6452, cburford@npca.org

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Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a recovery plan and proposed new critical habitat designations for threatened Canada lynx, including for the first time areas in the southern Rockies. Conservation groups had prevailed in two court cases seeking to compel the Service to take action to aid lynx recovery in this region in support of 218 lynx reintroduced into Colorado from 1999-2006. The proposal seeks to protect lynx habitat increasingly threatened by climate change and exclude areas where the species’ continued survival is unlikely.

“The science and the law support critical habitat protections for lynx in the southern Rockies. It’s what they need to have a fighting chance at survival in the face of our warming climate,” said Matthew Bishop, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “We’ve had to push the Fish and Wildlife Service for every inch of progress on Canada lynx recovery efforts, and are hopeful the agency is beginning a new chapter of good-faith recovery efforts for this ecologically significant and iconic wild cat. More work is required and we’d like to see more lands in Montana, Idaho, and Washington’s Kettle Range included, but the additions in the southern Rockies are a welcome change. Should the incoming Trump administration try to claw back these protections in the southern Rockies we won’t hesitate to return to court once again.”

While the critical habitat proposal decreases acreage around Greater Yellowstone, the new designations in the southern Rockies would add protections on 7,679 square miles in Colorado and portions of San Juan County in New Mexico. The Service also designated additional lands for lynx protection in Idaho.

Critical habitat is area designated by the federal government as essential to the survival and recovery of a species protected by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Once designated, federal agencies must make special efforts to protect critical habitat from damage or destruction. In 2014, the Service designated approximately 38,000 acres of critical habitat for threatened lynx, but chose to exclude the lynx’s entire southern Rocky Mountain range, from south-central Wyoming, throughout Colorado, and into north-central New Mexico. These areas are vital to the iconic cat’s survival and recovery in the western U.S., where lynx currently live in small and sometimes isolated populations.

“Finally, after decades of litigation and political gamesmanship, we are encouraged to see the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service taking meaningful steps to protect the Canada lynx in the western U.S. through a recovery plan and designation of additional critical habitat, including the southern Rockies,” said Lindsay Larris, conservation director at WildEarth Guardians. “The Canada lynx is fighting to survive in the face of climate change and needs its habitat to be protected. This is what the Endangered Species Act requires and we hope this proposed rule is finalized despite changes in the federal government.”

“The lynx is a keystone species in the southern Rockies ecosystem. Once considered extirpated, the lynx is back and reproducing in western Colorado’s forests,” said Peter Hart, legal director at Wilderness Workshop. “Colorado’s high mountains provide increasingly important refugia for lynx as the climate warms. If we want this species to persist and thrive, we need to protect critical habitat here. This proposed rule and recovery plan appear to be a step in the right direction, but we’ll be looking at the rule more closely in the next 60 days and providing detailed feedback to the agency.”

Contacts: 

Matthew Bishop, Western Environmental Law Center, 406-324-8011, bishop@westernlaw.org

Lindsay Larris, WildEarth Guardians, 720-334-7301, llarris@wildearthguardians.org

Peter Hart, Wilderness Workshop, 303-475-4915, peter@wildernessworkshop.org

Canada lynx background:
Canada lynx, medium-sized members of the feline family, are habitat and prey specialists. Heavily reliant on snowshoe hare, lynx tend to be limited in both population and distribution to areas where hare are sufficiently abundant. Like their preferred prey, lynx are specially adapted to living in mature boreal forests with dense cover and deep snowpack. The species and its habitat are threatened by climate change, logging, development, motorized access, and trapping, which disturb and fragment the landscape, increasing risks to lynx and their prey.

The Service first listed lynx as threatened under the ESA in 2000. However, at that time the Service failed to protect any lynx habitat, impeding the species’ survival and recovery. Lynx habitat received no protection until 2006, and that initial critical habitat designation fell short of meeting the rare cat’s needs and the ESA’s standards. After two additional lawsuits brought by conservationists challenging the Service’s critical habitat designations culminated in 2008 and 2010, a district court in Montana left the agency’s lynx habitat protection in place while remanding it to the Service for improvement. This resulted in the habitat designation that was remanded for improvement again in 2016.

In 2014, the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana also ruled that the Service violated the ESA by failing to prepare a recovery plan for lynx after a more than 12-year delay. The court ordered the Service to complete a recovery plan for lynx or determine that such a plan would not promote the conservation of lynx by January 15, 2018. The Service ultimately determined that a recovery plan would not promote lynx conservation. The groups listed in this statement and others sued and secured an agreement from the Service to abandon its plans to remove endangered species protections for lynx as well as complete a draft recovery plan by a tentative deadline of Dec. 1, 2024.

The Service’s 2017 Species Status Assessment analyzes lynx population centers’ “probably of persistence”—their likelihood of surviving to the year 2100—under its present regulatory framework as follows (map):

• Unit 1: Northern Maine – 50%
• Unit 2: NE Minnesota – 35%
• Unit 3: NW Montana/SE Idaho – 78%
• Unit 4: Washington – 38%
• Unit 5: Greater Yellowstone – 15%
• Unit 6: Western Colorado – 50%

The lynx Species Status Assessment paints a bleak picture for lynx, noting only one geographic unit (Unit 3 – MT and ID) “has a high (78%) probability of supporting resident lynx by 2100” and noting the remaining geographic units “were deemed to have a 50 percent or greater likelihood of functional extirpation…by the end of the century” [SSA at 6].

Studies show species with designated critical habitat under the ESA are more than twice as likely to have increasing populations than those species without. Similarly, species with adequate habitat protection are less likely to suffer declining populations and more likely to be stable. The ESA allows designation of both occupied and unoccupied habitat key to the recovery of listed species, and provides an extra layer of protection especially for animals like lynx that have an obligate relationship with a particular landscape type.

Canada lynx photo for media use (credit: USFWS/Dash Feierabend)

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