United States Ninth Circuit

In an environmental groups' suit challenging the regulations under Section 101(a)(5)(A) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) that authorize incidental take of polar bears and Pacific walruses resulting from oil and gas exploration activities in the Chukchi Sea and on the adjacent coast of Alaska, district court's grant of summary judgment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is affirmed, as section 101(a)(5)(A) requires the Service to determine separately that a specified activity will take only "small numbers" of marine animals, and that the take will have only "negligible impact" on the species of stock. Here, the Service permissibly determined that only "relatively small numbers" of polar bears and Pacific walruses would be taken in relation to the size of their population in separately making that determination that the anticipated take would have only a "negligible impact" on the mammals' annual rates of recruitment or survival. Further, the Services' accompanying BiOp and EA comply with the ESA and NEPA.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/21/2012
• Published 08/21/2012

Judges

• Fletcher

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel