Defenders of Wildlife v. Babbitt, 130 F. Supp. 2d 121 (D.D.C. 2001)
Defenders of Wildlife v. Widnall, Civ. No 96-2117 (D.D.C.)
Case Summary:
On behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, we challenged the Air Force's program of practicing bombing in the midst of habitat used by the extremely endangered Sonoran Pronghorn antelope on the Goldwater Range in Southwest Arizona. The Air Force settled the case by agreeing to engage in "formal consultation" with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and by monitoring for the presence of pronghorn prior to dropping bombs. However, given the deficiencies of that analysis, we sued all the branches of the military, as well as several Interior agencies and the Border Patrol, concerning the plight of the Pronghorn on the Goldwater Range in Southwest Arizona. With as few as 125 of these animals left in the US, we sought to have the court set aside numerous Biological Opinions (BO's) permitting the additional "take" of pronghorn, and to order the agencies that were dropping bombs, shooting bullets, and engaging in a host of other activities in pronghorn habitat to engage in a multi-agency ESA and NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act), process to assess the cumulative impacts of these activities on the species. The US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a sweeping ruling, finding that each agency failed to consider cumulative impacts in the manner required by the ESA and NEPA and remanding the BO's and several EIS's for this analysis. The Court also set aside the recovery plan for the Pronghorn, finding that it lacked the elements necessary to ensure the species' survival and recovery.
Plaintiffs: Defenders of Wildlife, and individuals.
Court: United States District Court for the District of Columbia