Protecting Fish & Wildlife

Case: Idaho Conservation League, the Wilderness Society, EarthWorks, Friends of the Clearwater, Wilderness Watch v. Lannom, Keith B., and U.S. Forest Service

August 2, 2016 — the U.S. District Court ruled in our favor, finding that a Forest Service decision approving a mining company’s plan to deploy bulldozers, dump trucks and drilling rigs miles inside the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness violates the Wilderness Act, the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. […]

Case: Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Clearwater, and Project Coyote v. Todd Grimm, USDA Aphis Wildlife Services, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

After Advocates for the West filed suit challenging Wildlife Services’s failure to analyze and disclose to the public the impacts of its activities in Idaho, Wildlife Services issued a draft environmental analysis that discusses some of the impacts of its activities at an Idaho-wide scale.  Advocates for the West worked with our clients to draft comments […]

Case: Environmental Assessment for the Golden Meadow Exploration Project

January 7th, 2015 — For the third time now, the Forest Service has issued a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) and proposes to approve Midas Gold’s three-year exploration plan at Idaho’s historic Stibnite mining site. Twice – in response to our pressure – the Forest Service has withdrawn EAs for Midas’s exploration, citing the need for additional […]

Case: Notice of Intent to Sue EPA Under Clean Water Act for Failing to Prepare and Promulgate Toxics Standards in Idaho

April 30, 2013 — Advocates for the West sent EPA a Notice of Intent to Sue for failing to promptly revise these important water quality standards. We were able to craft a settlement agreement which gives IDEQ and other stakeholders time to complete fish consumption studies, but which sets a deadline to revise the standards […]

Case: Idaho Wool Growers Association, et al. v. Tom Vilsack and The Wilderness Society

March 2, 2016 — The Ninth Circuit court issued an opinion in our favor affirming the district court’s summary judgement. The opinion was written by Judge Berzon of the Ninth Circuit, and is the culmination of litigation that began in 2007. It affirms that domestic sheep pose a substantial risk of disease transmission to bighorn […]

Case: Intent to Sue Over Violations of Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act

September 27, 2018 — A federal court decision preserves the listing status for Gunnison sage-grouse as a threatened species, with the critical habitat the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service designated for it intact. Fewer than 3,000 of this unique sage-grouse species remain, clustered around Colorado’s Gunnison Basin. Advocates for the West represented WildEarth Guardians and […]

Case: Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, and Project Coyote v. Kraayenbrink, Joseph J., and Bureau of Land Management

November 24, 2014 — In response to our lawsuit, BLM backed down from its decision to allow the derby to take place on the public lands managed by the agency. BLM informed us of the decision just hours before we planned to submit our brief asking the Court to stop this year’s hunt. Director of […]

Case: Idaho Conservation League v. U.S. Forest Service and NOAA Fisheries

Advocates for the West is pleased to announce we settled this case against the Forest Service and NOAA Fisheries for failing to complete Endangered Species Act consultations for over 100 water diversions on streams in the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho’s Upper Salmon River basin.  The Salmon-Challis National Forest is home to important populations of threatened […]

Case: Western Watersheds Project v. Dirk Kempthorne, Department of the Interior, and Bureau of Land Management

This large case challenges several hundred grazing permits, oil and gas leases, and other land management decisions approved by BLM during the last years of the Bush Administration, which individually and together harm the Great Basin core population of greater sage-grouse in Idaho and Nevada. BLM violated basic federal environmental laws — including the National Environmental Policy […]

Case: Concerned Friends of the Winema, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Western Watersheds Project, Oregon Wild, and Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Forest Service

January 24, 2017 — In an exciting wrap-up to this important case, District Judge Aiken adopted in-full Judge Clarke’s ruling, which means that the biological opinion in question is vacated and the Forest Service must reinitiate consultation over the spotted frog. The agency will also be unable to issue new permits unless they demonstrate to […]