Following a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Bird Alliance of Oregon, a federal judge found that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s 2022 decision to list the streaked horned lark as threatened and not endangered was unlawful.
The court ordered the agency to reconsider within one year if the species warrants stronger protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The streaked horned lark resides in Puget Sound and Willamette Valley prairies in Oregon. The groups said the species has been reduced to small populations due to urbanization and agricultural conversion of their habitat.
“The Service now has no excuse but to uplist the streaked horned lark from threatened to endangered,” said Joe Liebezeit of the Bird Alliance of Oregon.
