Federal authorities may list a species as “threatened” based on climate models that show habitat loss in the coming decades, an appeals court decided Monday.
The state of Alaska, oil company groups and Alaskan natives had challenged a decision by the federal government to list a sea ice seal subspecies as threatened and deserving of protection.
The challengers maintained the subspecies’ population was currently healthy and the climate projections were speculative.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. The ruling would allow government protection of all sorts of wildlife likely to be affected by climate change in the decades ahead.
The panel decided unanimously that the National Marine Fisheries Services reasonably determined that loss of Arctic sea ice over shallow waters would “almost certainly” threaten the survival of a Pacific bearded seal subspecies by the end of the century.
“The service need not wait until a species’ habitat is destroyed to determine that habitat loss may facilitate extinction,” Judge Richard A. Paez wrote for the court.
The bearded seals are among several species, including the polar bear, that the government has classified as threatened because of climate change.
A lawyer for an environmental group that sought the listing said the 9th Circuit decision was particularly significant because it allowed for protection of a species based on models of conditions at the end of the century.
“This legal victory is likely to have major implications for many other climate-threatened species,” said Kristen Monsell, a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, which sought the listing.
