Revisiting Small Populations in Jeopardy: A Rejoinder to Börk et al.

Paul Weiland co-authored the article, “Revisiting Small Populations in Jeopardy: A Rejoinder to Börk et al.” for the Environmental Law Reporter (ELR) – a publication of the Environmental Law Institute. The article is a response to an earlier article published in September 2020 in ELR – “Small Populations in Jeopardy: A Delta Smelt Case Study,” by Karrigan Börk, Peter Moyle, John Durand, Tien-Chieh Hung and Andrew L. Rypel.

The response article provides an overview of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) consultation process and its reliance on effects analysis, an analytical technique analogous to risk assessment, whereby the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is obliged to follow a stepwise process to evaluate presumptive efforts of agency actions on listed species and their designated critical habitats. It then contrasts effects analysis—with the approach taken by the authors of the previous article—in evaluating the adequacy of FWS’ determination and developing an alternative.