Polar bear habitat appealed to Supreme Court

On Nov. 4 the state of Alaska and other appellees formally requested the U.S. Supreme Court to review an opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upholding the designation of polar bear critical habitat by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Fish and Wildlife issued the polar bear critical habitat designation in November 2010, following the 2009 listing of the animals as threatened under terms of the Endangered Species Act. The designation covered 187,157 square miles, including a vast offshore area; barrier islands and spits; and polar bear denning habitat along Alaska’s northern coast.

Worried about the possible impact of the habitat designation on economic activity, a number of organizations including the state of Alaska, the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, the American Petroleum Institute, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope appealed the designation in federal court.

The federal District Court in Alaska rejected the critical habitat designation in a 2013 ruling. But in February of this year the 9th Circuit reversed that decision, upholding Fish and Wildlife’s broad view that critical habitat should include all territory containing critical habitat features, and not just land that the bears currently use. In June the 9th Circuit declined a request by the appellees to hold an en banc hearing, a procedure that would have involved all of the 9th Circuit judges reconsidering the case, rather than have the case decided by a three-judge panel.

The Supreme Court must now decide whether to conduct a review of the case.

- ALAN BAILEY