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Action timeline

February 16, 1998 – The Center, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Carson Forest Watch, Center for Native Ecosystems, Pacific Rivers Council, and Mr. Michael Norte petitioned to list the Rio Grande cutthroat trout as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

August 18, 1998 – The Center, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Center for Native Ecosystems, Ecology Center, and Pacific Rivers Council petitioned to list the Yellowstone cutthroat trout under the Endangered Species Act.

September 14, 1998 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that listing was “not warranted” for the Rio Grande cutthroat trout.

September 16, 1998 – The Center and allies filed suit against the Service for unlawfully denying the Rio Grande cutthroat trout protection.

December 9, 1999 – The Center, Biodiversity Associates, the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Colorado Wild, the Center for Native Ecosystems, and Wild Utah Forest Campaign filed a scientific petition to list the Colorado River cutthroat trout under the Endangered Species Act.

October 17, 2000 – The Center and allies filed suit against the Fish and Wildlife Service for its failure to respond to our 1999 petition to list the Colorado River cutthroat trout as an endangered species.

February 2001 – In response to our 1998 petition and a lawsuit, the Service announced it would not provide federal protections for the Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

June 11, 2002 – In response to our 2000 lawsuit, the Service admitted that the Rio Grande cutthroat trout had been eliminated from 99 percent of its former habitat but continued to find that the fish did not need federal protection.

February 25, 2003 – The Center again sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for unlawfully denying the Rio Grande cutthroat trout protection as an endangered species. 

January 20, 2004 – The Center and allies sued the Service for denying listing to the Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

April 20, 2004 – In response to our 1999 petition, the Bush administration announced that the highly imperiled Colorado River cutthroat trout would not be listed as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. The decision was more than four years past a deadline established by the Act.

February 3, 2005 – The Center, Oregon Natural Resources Council, Pacific Rivers Council, and WaterWatch sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for illegally denying protection for southwest Washington’s Columbia River population of the coastal cutthroat trout under the Endangered Species Act. Based on a status review by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Clinton administration had proposed to list the trout as threatened in 1999, but in 2002 the Bush administration reversed the proposed rule without a scientific reason. 

February 17, 2005 – The Center, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, and Pacific Rivers Council filed suit against the Fish and Wildlife Service for denying protection to the Bonneville cutthroat trout as a threatened or endangered species. The Biodiversity Legal Foundation, now incorporated by the Center, had previously filed a petition to protect the fish.

February 20, 2006 – In response to a court order to reconsider whether the Yellowstone cutthroat trout merited federal protection, the Service again denied the trout Endangered Species Act listing.

May 2, 2006 – The Center, along with the Pacific Rivers Council and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, filed a notice of intent to sue the Service for its February 2006 decision not to list the Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

September 7, 2006 – In response to the lawsuit brought by the Center and other conservation groups, a federal court ruled that the Service must complete a status review of the Colorado River cutthroat trout to determine whether it should be deemed a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.

April 17, 2007 – Following a Center lawsuit, a federal court rejected a Bush administration plan to roll back protections from livestock grazing for threatened steelhead and bull trout habitat in eastern Oregon’s Malheur National Forest, in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

May 22, 2007 – In the successful conclusion of the Center’s suit, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would reconsider the Rio Grande cutthroat trout for protection as an endangered species.

June 13, 2007 – In response to a Center petition, the Service denied Endangered Species Act listing for the Colorado River cutthroat trout. The decision relied on a flawed Bush administration policy that allowed the agency to look only at current range when considering whether the trout is endangered. 

September 8, 2007 – The Center, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, and Pacific Rivers Council filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service — for the second time —  for denying protection for the Bonneville cutthroat trout as a threatened or endangered species.

October 24, 2007 – The Service, in response to litigation by the Center and allies, announced it would reconsider endangered species protections for the Bonneville cutthroat trout.

April 21, 2008 – In a resolution of the Center’s February 2005 lawsuit, a federal court ruled that the Service had illegally denied Endangered Species Act protections to coastal cutthroat trout.

May 13, 2008 – After three Center lawsuits — and a decade after our initial 1998 petition — the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the Rio Grande cutthroat trout warranted endangered species protection. Unfortunately, the agency merely listed the trout as a candidate species, providing the fish with no actual protections.

June 16, 2009 – A federal judge temporarily halted cattle grazing within important native trout streams in eastern Oregon’s Malheur National Forest to protect steelhead trout.

November 24, 2009 – The Center filed suit challenging the Fish and Wildlife Service’s June 13, 2007 decision denying federal protection to the Colorado River cutthroat trout.

July 2010 – A growing coalition of conservation groups, leading scientists, Stanford alumni and more than 3,000 Bay Area residents pressured Stanford University to consider removing Searsville Dam, an obsolete structure that has blocked steelhead migration in the San Francisquito Creek watershed for more than a century.

July 2010 – A growing coalition of conservation groups, leading scientists, Stanford alumni and more than 3,000 Bay Area residents pressured Stanford University to consider removing Searsville Dam, an obsolete structure that has blocked steelhead migration in the San Francisquito Creek watershed for more than a century.

 

Photo by Jason Kling, USDA Forest Service