Opening Brief Filed In First Circuit Canada Lynx Appeal

Today, the Animal Welfare Institute and the Wildlife Alliance of Maine filed their opening brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.  The appeal challenges a lower court decision that found a substantive violation of the Endangered Species Act’s strict prohibition on “taking” members of listed species, but failed to craft any declaratory or injunctive relief to remedy the violation.  The lower court’s unprecedented result has sanctioned unlawful conduct by the defendant in the case, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, effectively giving the defendant a green light to run roughshod over the Act’s mandates.