National Audubon Society v. Hester
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
801 F.2d 405 (1986)
- Written by Deanna Curl, JD
Facts
In an effort to prevent the extinction of the California condor, North America’s largest winged bird, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Wildlife Service) (defendant) developed a condor-recovery program. In late 1984 and early 1985, six of only 15 remaining wild condors disappeared. As a result, the Wildlife Service issued an environmental assessment (the assessment) in October 1985 that considered seven alternative actions to protect the remaining wild condors. The assessment ultimately concluded that maintaining a stock of wild condors and capturing a group of genetically underrepresented condors for breeding would minimize condor mortality and increase the bird’s genetic diversity. Shortly after the assessment’s release, one of the condors marked for capture started courting another wild bird, several captive condors were deemed too tame for release, and another captive condor died due to zoo mismanagement. In December 1985, the Wildlife Service issued an assessment addendum announcing that all remaining wild condors would be brought into captivity. Following a lawsuit by the National Audubon Society (plaintiff), the district court issued an injunction preventing the capture of the remaining wild condors.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Per curiam)
What to do next…
Here's why 832,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,500 briefs, keyed to 994 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
