Usfws

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL No. 20-15654

DIVERSITY,

D.C. Nos. Plaintiff-Appellee, 4:17-cv-00475- v. JAS 4:17-cv-00576-

UNITED STATES FISH AND JAS

WILDLIFE SERVICE, 4:18-cv-00189-

JAS

Defendant-Appellee,

OPINION

v.

ROSEMONT COPPER COMPANY,

Intervenor-Defendant- Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona James Alan Soto, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted September 23, 2022 Pasadena, California

Filed May 17, 2023 Before: Sandra S. Ikuta, Danielle J. Forrest, and Holly A. Thomas, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Forrest; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge H.A. Thomas

SUMMARY *

Environmental Law

In a case in which intervenor Rosemont Copper Company challenges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’s (FWS) designation of certain areas in southern Arizona as critical habitat for jaguar under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the panel affirmed the district court’s vacatur of the FWS’s designation of the challenged area as…