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CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY Because life is good
ABOUT ACTION PROGRAMS SPECIES NEWSROOM PUBLICATIONS SUPPORT

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Action timeline

November 5, 1992 – Conservation groups petitioned for Endangered Species Act protection for the splittail.

January 6, 1994 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the splittail as a threatened species, but then delayed listing.

May 29, 1998 – The Center and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the Service to force listing of the splittail, resulting in a federal court order compelling the Service to take action.

February 8, 1999 – The Service formally listed the splittail as a threatened species. The Center filed a lawsuit to force the Service to designate critical habitat.

June 2000 – After a lawsuit by water agencies, a federal court ordered the Service to review the splittail’s listing.

September 22, 2003 – The Service removed the splittail from the threatened species list.

August 28, 2007 – The Center submitted a notice of intent to sue the Service to require reconsideration of the splittail listing, also challenging wrongful Endangered Species Act decisions affecting 54 other species.

August 13, 2009 – The Center filed a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration’s decision to remove the Sacramento splittail from the endangered species list.

September 2, 2009 – The Center and a coalition of conservation and commercial fishing organizations sent a letter to the California legislature opposing a flawed Delta bill package and opposing the approval of an environmentally destructive “peripheral canal.” The dams that would result from the bill package, along with the canal, had the potential to devastate the Bay-Delta ecosystem and its native fisheries.

January 22, 2010 – The Center won a settlement of our 2009 suit, in which the Service agreed to make a new 12-month finding on whether a listing of the species is warranted.

October 5, 2010 – The Service today issued an inexplicable determination that listing this critically imperiled fish species was not warranted.

Photo © Rene Reyes