Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05204/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05204-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 893
Nature of Suit: Environmental Matters
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 12, 2011 Decided July 22, 2011

No. 10-5204

OTAY MESA PROPERTY, L.P., ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cv-00383)

Roger J. Marzulla argued the cause for appellants. With 

him on the briefs was Nancie G. Marzulla. 

M. Reed Hopper and Damien M. Schiff were on the brief 

for amicus curiae Pacific Legal Foundation in support of 

appellants.

Maggie B. Smith, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were 

Ellen J. Durkee and Meredith Flax, Attorneys. Kathryn E. 

Kovacs, Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. 

Attorney, entered appearances.

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William J. Snape, III, argued the cause for intervenor 

Center for Biological Diversity. With him on the brief was 

Jonathan C. Evans.

Before: ROGERS, GRIFFITH, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge 

KAVANAUGH.

KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge: This case concerns the San 

Diego fairy shrimp, an aquatic animal found in southern 

California. The San Diego fairy shrimp is the size of an ant 

and has a life span of about 30 days. In 1997, the Fish and 

Wildlife Service listed the San Diego fairy shrimp as an 

endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. That

Act authorizes the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate

property as “critical habitat” for the endangered species if the 

property was “occupied” by the species when the species was

listed as endangered (and if certain other requirements are 

met).

Plaintiffs are companies that own land along the 

California-Mexico border. In 2007, acting pursuant to the 

Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service 

designated 143 acres of plaintiffs’ property as critical habitat

for the San Diego fairy shrimp. The Fish and Wildlife 

Service based that critical habitat designation on a single 2001 

sighting of four ant-sized San Diego fairy shrimp on the 143 

acres of plaintiffs’ property. The four San Diego fairy shrimp 

were observed in a tire rut on a dirt road on plaintiffs’ 

property. Because the Fish and Wildlife Service has not 

reasonably explained how that one, isolated observation 

demonstrates that plaintiffs’ property was “occupied” by the 

San Diego fairy shrimp in 1997 (the relevant statutory date), 

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we reverse the judgment of the District Court and remand. 

On remand, the District Court should vacate the designation 

of plaintiffs’ property as critical habitat for the San Diego 

fairy shrimp and remand the matter to the agency.

I

The landmark Endangered Species Act of 1973 

authorizes the Department of the Interior to take measures to 

protect species at risk of extinction. The Fish and Wildlife 

Service, an agency within the Department, implements this 

important Act, as do other agencies. The Fish and Wildlife 

Service may list species at risk of extinction as “threatened” 

or “endangered.” 16 U.S.C. § 1533. Once a species is so 

designated, it may be unlawful for anyone to “take” (i.e., kill)

members of that species. Id. § 1538(a)(1)(B).

In addition, the Fish and Wildlife Service may designate 

land, including private property, as “critical habitat” for a 

threatened or endangered species. The Act states:

The term “critical habitat” for a threatened or 

endangered species means—

(i) the specific areas within the geographical area

occupied by the species, at the time it is listed [as a 

threatened or endangered species], on which are found 

those physical or biological features (I) essential to the 

conservation of the species and (II) which may require 

special management considerations or protection; and

(ii) specific areas outside the geographical area

occupied by the species at the time it is listed [as a 

threatened or endangered species], upon a determination 

by the Secretary that such areas are essential for the 

conservation of the species.

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16 U.S.C. § 1532(5)(A) (emphases added). 

Designation of private property as critical habitat can 

impose significant costs on landowners because federal 

agencies may not authorize, fund, or carry out actions that are 

likely to “result in the destruction or adverse modification” of 

critical habitat. Id. § 1536(a)(2).

Plaintiffs Otay Mesa Property, L.P., Rancho Vista Del 

Mar, and Otay International, LLC, own property along the 

California-Mexico border. In 2007, the Fish and Wildlife 

Service designated 143 acres of plaintiffs’ property as critical

habitat for the San Diego fairy shrimp.

San Diego fairy shrimp are tiny aquatic animals – about 

the size of ants. They live in “vernal pools” in southern 

California and northwestern Mexico. Those pools are 

typically large puddles or small seasonal ponds that form 

during the winter and then dry out as summer approaches. 

The life span of San Diego fairy shrimp is only about 30 days. 

If the shrimp lay eggs, those eggs can lie dormant in the 

bottom of a dry pool for months or years. When the pool refills again, the eggs can hatch.

In 1997, the Fish and Wildlife Service listed San Diego 

fairy shrimp as an endangered species. 62 Fed. Reg. 4925 

(Feb. 3, 1997). But the Service did not designate plaintiffs’ 

property as critical habitat at that time. In 2001, an

environmental consulting company surveyed a 3300-acre area 

along the California-Mexico border, searching for fairy 

shrimp. The surveyed area included plaintiffs’ property. The 

company conducted eight surveys between January and May

2001, when vernal pools are normally full and San Diego

fairy shrimp can be found. Those eight surveys produced one 

confirmed observation of San Diego fairy shrimp on 

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plaintiffs’ property: On February 7, 2001, surveyors observed 

four adult San Diego fairy shrimp in a tire rut on a dirt road.

The Fish and Wildlife Service became aware of this 

report and, in 2003, included plaintiffs’ property in its

proposed critical habitat designation for San Diego fairy 

shrimp. During the ensuing notice and comment period, 

plaintiffs submitted letters objecting to the designation of their

property. The Fish and Wildlife Service rejected those 

comments and in 2007 published a final rule designating as 

critical habitat 391 acres of southeast Otay Mesa, including 

plaintiffs’ property, on the justification that the area was 

“occupied by the [San Diego fairy shrimp] at the time of 

listing [as an endangered species in 1997],” and that “the 

species continues to occur” in the designated area. 72 Fed. 

Reg. 70,648, 70,674 (Dec. 12, 2007).

In 2008, plaintiffs sued to challenge the designation of 

their property as critical habitat. The District Court granted 

summary judgment to the Fish and Wildlife Service, although 

the court described the Fish and Wildlife Service’s support for 

its conclusion as “distinctly thin.” Otay Mesa Property L.P. 

v. Dep’t of Interior, 714 F. Supp. 2d 73, 75 (D.D.C. 2010). 

We review the District Court’s decision de novo. See

Hendricks v. Geithner, 568 F.3d 1008, 1011 (D.C. Cir. 2009). 

We review the Fish and Wildlife Service’s underlying 

decision pursuant to the standards set forth in the 

Administrative Procedure Act. See 5 U.S.C. § 706. The 

question here is whether substantial evidence supports the 

Fish and Wildlife Service’s determination that plaintiffs’ land 

was occupied by the San Diego fairy shrimp at the time of 

listing in 1997. Substantial evidence is a deferential standard. 

But deference is not abdication. This case illustrates the 

significance of that distinction.

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II

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, plaintiffs’

property meets the statutory definition of critical habitat 

because the property was “occupied” by the San Diego fairy 

shrimp in 1997 – the year the San Diego fairy shrimp was 

listed as an endangered species. 16 U.S.C. § 1532(5)(A)(i). 

Several factors taken together point to a lack of 

substantial evidence for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s 

determination that plaintiffs’ property was “occupied” by the 

San Diego fairy shrimp in 1997.

First, surveyors identified San Diego fairy shrimp on 

plaintiffs’ property only in one location. On February 7, 

2001, surveyors found four San Diego fairy shrimp in a tire 

rut on a dirt road on plaintiffs’ land. That is the sole 

confirmed observation of San Diego fairy shrimp on 

plaintiffs’ property. 

Second, after the one survey that found San Diego fairy 

shrimp on plaintiffs’ property, surveyors searched plaintiffs’ 

property six more times in 2001 for San Diego fairy shrimp. 

Having once found San Diego fairy shrimp, it might have 

been thought that surveyors would again find San Diego fairy 

shrimp on plaintiffs’ property. That did not happen. The 

failure to observe any San Diego fairy shrimp in later surveys 

of plaintiffs’ property is in tension with the suggestion that the 

property was occupied by the San Diego fairy shrimp in 2001. 

It is likewise in tension with the agency’s conclusion that the 

property was occupied in 1997 and the “species continue[d] to 

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occur” in 2007. 72 Fed. Reg. 70,648, 70,674 (Dec. 12, 

2007).

1

On appeal to this Court, the Fish and Wildlife Service 

explains that San Diego fairy shrimp may live for only 30 

days, but they can leave behind buried eggs that do not hatch 

for months or even years. See 62 Fed. Reg. 4925, 4926 (Feb. 

3, 1997). It appears that the Service might believe (i) that 

wherever adult San Diego fairy shrimp are observed, one can 

assume that the shrimp have left behind eggs and (ii) that a 

property with dormant, buried eggs is by definition 

“occupied” by the San Diego fairy shrimp. But if that’s the 

theory behind the Fish and Wildlife Service’s determination 

that plaintiffs’ property is occupied by San Diego fairy 

shrimp, the theory cannot be found in the final rule. This 

Court of course “may not supply a reasoned basis for the 

agency’s action that the agency itself has not given.” Motor 

Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 

U.S. 29, 43 (1983).

Third, the lone sighting in this case was in 2001, but the 

relevant date for purposes of the designation is 1997. Critical 

 1 To buttress the single confirmed sighting of San Diego fairy 

shrimp on plaintiffs’ land, the Fish and Wildlife Service cites a 

separate January 23, 2001, observation of an unidentified species of 

fairy shrimp in a small pond located next to the tire rut on the dirt 

road. The larvae were identified as being of the same genus as San 

Diego fairy shrimp, but they were only presumed to be of the same 

species because of the pond’s proximity to the tire rut. On appeal, 

the Service maintains that this presumption was reasonable because 

San Diego fairy shrimp are the only species of the relevant genus 

known to be in the area. But that explanation appears neither in the 

report recording the surveyors’ presumption nor in the final rule. 

See Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 

463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983).

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habitat includes “specific areas within the geographical area 

occupied by the species, at the time it is listed.” 16 U.S.C. 

§ 1532(5)(A) (emphasis added). The San Diego fairy shrimp 

was listed as an endangered species in 1997. But the Service 

has provided no evidence of sightings on plaintiffs’ land in 

1997. Although the Service has tried to explain why a single 

sighting in 2001 means that the San Diego fairy shrimp 

occupied plaintiffs’ property as of 1997, that reasoning is at 

best strained. See 72 Fed. Reg. at 70,666. For their part, 

plaintiffs believe that the San Diego fairy shrimp may have 

been brought onto plaintiffs’ property after 1997 by a truck 

tire.

2

Separately, the Fish and Wildlife Service suggests that 

plaintiffs’ property is part of a “vernal pool complex” that 

supports the San Diego fairy shrimp population in the general 

area. At oral argument, counsel for the Fish and Wildlife 

Service stated that maps in the record show a stream running 

from plaintiffs’ property to a pool not on plaintiffs’ land

where San Diego fairy shrimp have been observed (albeit, 

again, only one time).

But the potential existence of San Diego fairy shrimp 

outside plaintiffs’ property does not itself show that San 

Diego fairy shrimp occupy plaintiffs’ property, and 

 2 Indeed, the one pool – basically a puddle in a tire rut on a dirt 

road – in which the shrimp were observed in 2001 may not have 

even existed in 1997. At oral argument, plaintiffs’ counsel 

explained that “these roads are regularly maintained and graded 

each year so that the border patrol can use them daily to . . . get 

aliens crossing the border, and there are literally hundreds of aliens 

coming across this property daily, [and] that sometime between 

1997 and 2001, this rut was created.” Tr. of Oral Arg. at 20. On 

remand to the Fish and Wildlife Service, if plaintiffs raise this 

argument, the Service will need to address it.

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occupation of plaintiffs’ property was the rationale supplied in 

the agency’s final rule. To be sure, the Endangered Species 

Act allows designation of critical habitat both for land 

occupied by the species in question and for “specific areas 

outside the geographical area occupied by the species . . . 

upon a determination by the Secretary that such areas are 

essential for the conservation of the species.” 16 U.S.C. 

§ 1532(5)(A)(ii). But the Fish and Wildlife Service here 

designated plaintiffs’ land as critical habitat on the basis that 

it was occupied, not on the basis that it was a “specific area[] 

outside the geographical area occupied by the species . . . 

essential for the conservation of the species.” See, e.g., 72 

Fed. Reg. at 70,664 (“All areas designated as critical habitat 

for San Diego fairy shrimp are occupied . . . .”). If the Fish 

and Wildlife Service believes that plaintiffs’ land is critical 

habitat not because it is occupied, but rather because it is 

“essential for the conservation of the species,” then it must 

say so in its agency decision and justify that determination. 

See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 88 (1943).

The Fish and Wildlife Service also contends that the 

evidence here suffices because the Endangered Species Act 

requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to make critical habitat 

designations “on the basis of the best scientific data 

available.” 16 U.S.C. § 1533(b)(2). The Fish and Wildlife 

Service argues, correctly, that it has no affirmative obligation 

to conduct its own research to supplement existing data. See 

Am. Wildlands v. Kempthorne, 530 F.3d 991, 1001 (D.C. Cir. 

2008). But the absence of a requirement for the Service to 

collect more data on its own is not the same as an 

authorization to act without data to support its conclusions, 

even acknowledging the deference due to agency expertise.

Here, the Fish and Wildlife Service relies on eight 

surveys of plaintiffs’ property. Seven of those surveys found 

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no confirmed San Diego fairy shrimp on the property. One 

survey in 2001 resulted in identification of the species’ 

presence in one location. The “best scientific data available” 

fails to demonstrate, without further explanation, that 

plaintiffs’ property was “occupied” by San Diego fairy shrimp 

in 1997.

We emphasize that it is the combination of all the above 

factors that leads us to vacate the Fish and Wildlife Service’s 

designation of plaintiffs’ property. We rely on no single 

factor alone. On remand, moreover, the Fish and Wildlife

Service may be able to justify a re-designation. Our 

conclusion in this case is thus quite narrow: The current 

record is simply too thin to justify the action the Service took.

* * *

We reverse the District Court’s grant of summary 

judgment to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The District Court 

is directed to vacate the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision

designating plaintiffs’ property as critical habitat for the San 

Diego fairy shrimp and to remand the matter to the agency.

So ordered.

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