United States Second Circuit

In a matter raised by animal rights organizations challenging defendants' Depredation Order, which they alleged violates certain treaties and statutes by "authoriz[ing] state fish and wildlife agencies, Indian Tribes, and U.S. Department of Agriculture...employees to kill an unlimited of federally protected double-crested cormorants in New York and twenty-four other states", judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) discretion granted to these third parties is limited and subject to adequate oversight by the Fish and Wildlife Services and therefore the order did not contravene the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; 2) deference was warranted as to FWS's reasonable view that the Mexico Convention requires a close season only for game birds, which the parties agree do not include the cormorant; 3) the order was a reasonable response to evidence that in a large number of states, cormorants were responsible for localized, site-specific harm to public resources; and 4) the FWS did not violate NEPA in adopting the Depredation Order.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/14/2008
• Published 08/14/2008

Judges

• SACK, Circuit Judge:, Before:  McLAUGHLIN, CABRANES, and SACK, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Kimberly D. Ockene, Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal (Howard M. Crystal, Eric R. Glitzenstein, Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, Washington, DC;  and Leonard D. Egert, Amy Trakinski, Egert & Trakinski, New York, NY, of counsel), Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Sarah S. Normand, Assistant United States Attorney (Michael J. Garcia, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Sara L. Shudofsky, Assistant United States Attorney, of counsel), New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.