Friends of Animals v. Martha Williams

Summary

The D.C. Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for Friends of Animals, holding that ESA § 1533(e) unambiguously authorizes similarity-of-appearance treatment only for species not already listed as endangered or threatened, so the Service was not required to consider treating the already-listed threatened Northern DPS of the Southern Subspecies of the scarlet macaw as endangered. The court also rejected Friends' procedural challenges, holding the Service's appeal timely from the October 2024 final order, that the Service could raise its statutory arguments on that appeal, that its post-order Notification of Final Explanation did not moot the appeal, and that Friends' statutory-reading argument was unexhausted because it was never raised during rulemaking.