How ESA advertising requirement snagged fish delisting

Farmers and ranchers campaigned for years to persuade the Fish and Wildlife Service to drop endangered species protection for a tiny fish found in the streams of northeastern California and southern Oregon. In 2014, they almost succeeded. The service was set to delist the Modoc sucker last February but neglected to publish a newspaper notice mandated by the Endangered Species Act. That meant another year of federal protection for the 6-inch fish -- which has been on the endangered species list since 1985 -- and another year of frustration for agribusiness interests in the Pacific Northwest. Critics of the 1973 Endangered Species Act say its newspaper ad requirement is antiquated and a prime example of why Congress should overhaul the Nixon-era law. At the time of the law's enactment, "an appropriate means of public communication certainly could have been publication of a local classified ad, but it is 2015," said Ryan Yates, chairman of the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, an alliance of industry groups. "This is one more example of how the ESA is an outdated law that needs to be updated and modernized," he added. Last reauthorized by Congress in 1988, the ESA specifically orders federal agencies to publish a summary of regulatory changes "in a newspaper of general circulation in each area of the United States in which the species is believed to occur." Fish and Wildlife belatedly satisfied that obligation for the Modoc sucker last month by running a 4-inch notice on Page D5 of the Sunday, Feb. 15, Klamath Falls Herald and News, just above some real estate listings and next to an ad for "50% OFF Mondays!" at Chrome Wrench Auto Works. The Modoc sucker notice cost $132.81, a tiny fraction of the $159,662 that Fish and Wildlife spent on required newspaper ads in 2014...more