Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

ORDER RE: SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Re: ECF Nos. 54, 57,

Before the Court are Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 54, Federal Defendants’ Cross Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 57, and Defendant Intervenors’ Cross Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 59. For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies Defendants’ and Intervenors’ motions, and denies in part and grants in part Plaintiffs’ motion.

1. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

This case concerns the coastal marten. The marten is a small mammal in the weasel family with distinctive orange and yellow chest fur and a large bushy tail. MAR 1 20983. Coastal martens 2 inhabit old-growth forests west of the Rocky *1275 Mountains in Northern California, Southern Oregon, and Central Oregon. MAR 20985. Historically, the coastal marten lived “in all coastal Oregon counties and the coastal northern counties of California within late-successional coniferous forests.” MAR 22029. Fur trapping and logging in the mid to late 1900s, among other things, seriously impacted the coastal marten. MAR 13210, 3Í871. Today, the coastal marten population is comparatively small and reduced in distribution; only three populations of coastal marten…