Golden-Cheeked Warbler: Endangered or Not?
The Fifth Circuit on Wednesday found that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service improperly denied Texas’ petition to remove the golden-cheeked warbler from the Endangered Species list.
Though the state’s challenge to the warbler’s status was untimely, Fifth Circuit Judge Carolyn King wrote, Fish and Wildlife applied an unfairly high standard when reviewing the petition, rendering the denial “arbitrary and capricious.” The Fifth Circuit vacated the ruling and remanded the matter to Fish and Wildlife for reevaluation.
The federal office listed golden-cheeked warblers, whose bright yellow facial plumage and distinctive black eyelines can be seen nesting exclusively in central Texas’ woodlands of live oak and Ashe juniper, as endangered in 1990, when those woodlands were being cleared for residential and retail development in and around Austin.
https://www.courthousenews.com/golden-cheeked-warbler-endangered-or-not/
