monarch-esa-petition-final_61585

SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF RANGE
As explained in detail above, the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus plexippus, is threatened
range-wide with extinction in the foreseeable future due to loss and curtailment of habitat and
range, disease, predation, other factors including climate change and pesticide use, and the lack
of existing regulations to safeguard the butterfly. North American populations have declined
precipitously and are threatened by all five listing factors. Populations outside of North America
are also threatened with extinction due to a variety of factors including small population size,
host plant eradication, development, disease, global climate change, stochastic weather events
including drought and excessive heat, and sea-level rise. The monarch butterfly thus warrants
listing due to range-wide threats. Should the Service conclude, however, that the monarch is not
threatened range-wide, then the Service must examine whether the monarch is threatened in a
significant portion of its range (SPR). The best available scientific information indicates that the
monarch plainly is threatened with extinction in the foreseeable future in a significant portion of
its range.
On July 1, 2014, the Service issued a Final Policy on Interpretation of the Phrase ‘‘Significant
Portion of Its Range’’ in the Endangered Species Act’s Definitions of ‘‘Endangered Species’’
and ‘‘Threatened Species’’ (79 FR 37578). According to the policy, a portion of the range of a
species is “significant” if its contribution to the viability of the species is so important that,
without the members in that portion, the species would be in danger of extinction, or likely to
become so in the foreseeable future, throughout all of its range.
As an initial matter, this definition violates the Endangered Species Act and relevant judicial
precedent. In a case concerning the flat-tailed horned lizard (Phrynosoma mcallii), the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals specifically rejected a definition of Significant Portion of Range that
requires risk of extinction to the species as a whole, stating:
If, however, the effect of extinction throughout ‘a significant portion of its range’ is the
threat of extinction everywhere, then the threat of extinction throughout ‘a significant
portion of its range’ is equivalent to the threat of extinction throughout all its range.
Because the statute already defines ‘endangered species’ as those that are ‘in danger of
extinction throughout all ... of [their] range,’ the Secretary's interpretation of ‘a
significant portion of its range’ has the effect of rendering the phrase superfluous. Such a
redundant reading of a significant statutory phrase is unacceptable. Defenders of Wildlife,
et al. v. Norton, 258 F.3d 1136, 1145 (9th Cir. 2001).
In essentially defining the significant portion of range language out of existence, the Service’s
new policy undercuts a critical component of the Act. Indeed, Congress expressly noted that the
“significant portion of its range” provision marked “a significant shift in the definition in existing
law which considers a species to be endangered only when it is threatened with worldwide
extinction” (H.R.Rep. No. 412, 93rd Cong., 1 Sess. (1973).
The monarch is a case in point. As this petition demonstrates, the monarch is at risk of extinction
in North America, but also occurs as an introduced species in a number of other parts of the
world, including Europe, Australia and a number of island nations. A conclusion by the Service
Monarch ESA Petition 108