Federal Arctic Ringed Seal Protections Upheld by Appeals Court

Alaska bid to scrap endangered species protections for the Arctic ringed seal failed Friday after a federal appeals court ruled the National Marine Fisheries Service reasonably considered new climate change protections in justifying the listing decision.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld NMFS’s decision without oral arguments, deferring to the agency’s interpretation of “complex scientific data” in denying the state’s petition to delist the seal species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

• Alaska appealed a lower court’s ruling that its petition didn’t present substantial new scientific information to reverse the agency’s 2012 listing decision
• NMFS ...