CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME COMMISSION, Defendant and Appellant.

In this case the Court of appeal decided that the California Fish and Game Commission (the Commission) erred in rejecting at the threshold a petition to add the California tiger salamander to the Commission's list of endangered species, under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). Under CESA a petition for listing must be accepted for consideration if it is supported by sufficient information to lead a reasonable person to conclude there is a substantial possibility the requested listing could occur. The information in the administrative record shows the salamander species does not breed prolifically, is vulnerable to several significant threats, has lost most of its original habitat, and has been displaced by a hybrid from a significant portion of its range. The petition was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity. The Commission rejected the petition, finding it does not provide sufficient information to indicate that any CESA listing may be warranted. The trial court granted the Center's request for a writ of mandate, overturning the rejection decision and directing the Commission to enter a new decision accepting the species as a candidate for listing pursuant to section 2074.2, subdivision (a)(2). The Commission appealed from the judgment, contending the trial court erred in overturning its rejection of the petition. Finding no prejudicial error, the Court affirmed the judgment. Once a petition makes a prima facie showing that a species in threatened, the Commission must accept the candidate species listing petition unless the countervailing information and logic persuasively, wholly undercut some important component of that prima facie showing...if the information clearly would lead a reasonable person to conclude that there is a substantial possibility that the listing could occur, rejection of the petition is outside the Commission’s range of discretionIn its overall judgment, the Court ultimately concluded that the information presented to the Commission represented a prima facie showing that the California tiger salamander species is a threatened or endangered species within the CESA. The Commission's criticism of parts of this showing is not sufficient to support its finding that a reasonable person would conclude there is no substantial possibility that listing could occur. Rather than send the decision back to the Commission for further deliberation, the court ordered the Commission to directly advance the tiger salamander to candidacy in light of the evidence of the species’ imperiled status.