The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the Trump administration was wrong to reverse protections for the Pacific walrus.. The ruling will force federal agencies to reconsider what protections are warranted for the species as their ocean habitat warms.
The ruling comes more than a decade after the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group, first petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the walrus as endangered or threatened. In 2008, attorneys for the Center said that oil and gas development threatened the species, as did the melting of sea ice that walruses use for habitat.