Background
On July 15, 2013, NMFS received a petition from WildEarth Guardians [pdf] to list 81 species as threatened or endangered and designate critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.
The 81 petitioned species includes
NMFS will respond to the petition with 90-day findings and, if warranted, 12-month findings in separate Federal Register notices organized by taxa of animals in the petition. We will post information on each finding and associated materials below as they become available.
NMFS published a 90-day finding on the portion of the petition related to 23 coral species on October 25, 2013.
The finding determined that the petition does not present substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted for 20 species:
NMFS found that the petition presented substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted for 3 species:
These three species are thus now considered candidate species. Status reviews will be initiated for these three species. To ensure that the status reviews are comprehensive, we are soliciting scientific and commercial information pertaining to these petitioned species from any interested party:
NOTE: Information on the 2009 petition to list 83 corals under the ESA is also available on our website.
Updated: October 28, 2013