Modesto Irrigation District v. Gutierrez

OPINION

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge:

This Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) case is a challenge to the decision of the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) to list the steelhead, a type of Pacific salmon, as a threatened species in California’s Central Valley. In listing the steelhead, NMFS defined it as a distinct species under the ESA, separate from rainbow trout, another type of Pacific salmon that breeds with and looks like the steelhead. The separate listing was a departure from the prior NMFS policy of classifying interbreeding Pacific salmon as a single species.

Plaintiffs are irrigation…