The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has withdrawn its proposed listing of the West Coast Distinct Population Segment of fisher, a small mammal that occupies habitat in California, Oregon, and Washington, as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).  

The listing was originally proposed in October 2014 after receiving a number of petitions and challenges for listing from a number of environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity.  A listing under the ESA would have triggered critical habitat designations and other restrictions on land use planning and other processes that could have severely impacted county governments.  

The 2014 listing proposal asserted that fishers were both losing habitat due to such disturbances as severe wildfire, while declining in number due to stressors such as rodenticide ingestion from illegal cannabis cultivation activities.  The proposal sought public input on the scope and severity of the species decline to aid the USFWS in determining whether to proceed with the listing process.  After receiving public comment through May 2015 from stakeholders, including RCRC, the USFWS has determined that the fisher population under consideration is not in danger of extinction anytime in the foreseeable future, and does therefore not meet the definition of threatened or endangered under the Act.

The official withdrawal of the proposed listing in the Federal Register can be accessed here.