Humane Society of the United States v. Pritzker

MEMORANDUM

The plaintiffs appeal the judgment entered in favor of the defendants on their claims under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

1. In a previous appeal, we vacated the National Marine Fisheries Services’ (NMFS) action and remanded for the agency to “adequately explain[ ] its finding that sea lions are having a ‘significant negative impact’ on the decline or recovery of listed salmonid populations given earlier factual findings by NMFS that fisheries that cause similar or greater mortality among these populations are not having significant negative impacts.” Humane Soc’y of U.S. v. Locke (Humane Society I), 626 F.3d 1040,1048 (2010). NMFS has now included in its new decision memorandum a 13-page explanation for these seemingly disparate factual findings. This explanation discusses, among other things, the qualitative differences between regulated and managed fisheries and hydro-power operations on the one hand and pinniped predation on the other. The decision memorandum also discusses the difficulty in estimating actual sea lion predation and the…