U.S. top court orders new look at case of endangered frog
NEW ORLEANS — Judges must look again at an agency’s decision to declare a tract of Louisiana timberland “critical habitat” for an endangered southeastern frog, after a ruling on Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 8-0 ruling concerns the endangered dusky gopher frog, currently found only in Mississippi.
At issue in the case is a 607-hectare tract of land in St. Tammany Parish, north of New Orleans. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated it as critical habitat for the small amphibians. That could limit the possibilities for development and use of the land. Opponents of the designation cast it as an unjust land grab by an overreaching bureaucracy.
Environmentalists had backed the ruling as a needed environmental protection. The wildlife service had won in a federal District Court and at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
But the Supreme Court ruled that the 5th Circuit must look at the unanswered question of what constitutes “habitat,” and whether the tract qualifies as habitat for the eight-centimetre-long frogs. The opinion said none has been spotted in the area for decades and the area would now require modification, such as controlled burns of forest areas, to be suitable for them.
Tuesday’s opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts also said the 5th Circuit should have considered the question of whether the benefits involved in designating the land as critical habitat outweighed the costs.
Collette Adkins, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the ruling was a disappointment, but didn’t weaken current habitat protections.