This month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) declined to confirm the claim of multiple whooping crane deaths that prompted a 2008 lawsuit between an environmental group, The Aransas Project, and the state of Texas and other organizations.
The lawsuit claimed that mismanagement of state water rights by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) had caused the deaths of 23 endangered whooping cranes at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.
The USFWS responses were released during a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. The USFWS wrote, “Following the retirement of the service’s Whooping Crane Coordinator in 2011, a team of specialists was formed to evaluate our process for estimating the whooping crane population. After an extensive review, the team updated the methodology used for estimating whooping crane abundance. Use of this scientifically sound methodology has improved our knowledge and understanding of the whooping crane population and will aid in conservation planning, future policy decisions, and the long-term conservation of this species for the American public. However, the service is unable to confirm the loss of whooping cranes previously reported in 2008-2009, because the data could not be verified using the previous methodology. Therefore, the number of whooping cranes that died at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge during the winter of 2008-2009 remains unknown.”
Throughout the trial and subsequent appeals, the TCEQ presented wildlife experts who disputed the plaintiff’s claim that 23 whooping cranes had died.
“We are pleased to have this independent, scientific confirmation of the position we took throughout the legal proceedings,” Bryan W. Shaw, Ph.D., P.E., chairman of the TCEQ, said. “The TCEQ already has programs in place that take into account wildlife that depends on stream flows. In addition, had this suit stood, it would have seriously disrupted Texas’ existing water rights laws.” The plaintiffs in the lawsuit sued Dr. Shaw and the other two TCEQ commissioners in the suit in their official capacity, as well as other parties.
In a June 30, 2014 decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with defendants that the plaintiff failed to prove its case that diversions of water for use by Texans had led to multiple deaths of federally protected whooping cranes in the winter of 2008.
The Fifth Circuit in December 2014 denied a Petition for Rehearing En Banc requested by attorneys for The Aransas Project v. Shaw, in which a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit reversed a judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear the case.
