UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 18-1087 (JEB) WILBUR ROSS, in his official capacity as Secretary of Commerce, et al., Defendants, and FISHERIES SURVIVAL FUND, Defendant-Intervenor. MEMORANDUM OPINION Demonstrating that “there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men,” Herman Melville, Moby Dick 262 (W.W. Norton & Co. 1967) (1851), humans have brought the North Atlantic right whale to the brink of extinction. As of the release of this Opinion, only about 400 of these leviathans remain. In April 2018, the National Marine Fisheries Service promulgated a comprehensive Habitat Amendment, which altered rules governing New England’s fisheries. Among other measures, the Amendment opened two large swaths of the whales’ feeding grounds to one of their most dangerous predators: gillnet fishing gear. Plaintiff Conservation Law Foundation challenged this final rule, contending that NMFS implemented it in dereliction of its Congressional mandate to “insure that any action authorized, funded, or carried out by [any federal] agency . . . is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species.” 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2). In what is ultimately not a close 1 call, the Court concludes that NMFS has violated not only the Endangered Species Act but also the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The Court further finds that the appropriate remedy for this violation is an injunction restoring prohibitions on gillnet gear in the two formerly closed areas. I. Background Because a violation of Section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act would give rise to causes of action under not only the ESA but also the Magnuson-Stevens Act — indeed, CLF alleges both, see ECF No. 38 (Plaintiff Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment) at 1; ECF No. 1 (Complaint), ¶ 1 — the Court begins by laying out the statutory framework before proceeding to the factual background. While Plaintiff also brings a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act, “the APA permits courts to review ‘final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court,’” and “[h]ere, the ESA’s citizen-suit provision provides an adequate remedy.” Conservation Force v. Salazar, 715 F. Supp. 2d 99, 104 n.6 (D.D.C. 2010) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 704); accord Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 161–62 (1997) (“Although petitioners contend that their claims lie both under the ESA and the APA, . . . the APA by its terms independently authorizes review only when ‘there is no other adequate remedy in a court.’”) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 704). The Court, consequently, need not separately address the APA. A. Statutory Framework 1. Endangered Species Act Congress enacted the ESA in 1973 “to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.’” Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serv., 786 F.3d 1050, 1052 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting Tenn. Valley Auth. v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 184 (1978)). Section 7(a)(2) of the Act requires that “[e]ach Federal agency . . ...
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