Action timeline

May 2, 1994 – The Center filed a petition to list the Queen Charlotte goshawk as an endangered species.

June 29, 1995 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service admitted that the goshawk was imperiled but denied the petition, concluding that the bird did not need listing because the Forest Service promised to protect it in an upcoming revision of the Tongass National Forest Management Plan.

1996 – A federal judge threw out the Service's refusal to list the Queen Charlotte goshawk, ruling that reliance on a Forest Service "promise" to protect the goshawk violates the Endangered Species Act. The judge scolded the agency for delaying the listing process and for taking "an action which was sure to guarantee future litigation."

September 4, 1997 – The Service denied listing a second time.

1999 – A federal judge overturned the second decision by the Service not to list the Queen Charlotte goshawk as endangered, saying that the agency did not use the best science in making its decision.

2000 – British Columbia classified the bird as threatened under its Species at Risk Act.

2002 – A federal magistrate issued a formal recommendation to strike down the Service denial to list the Queen Charlotte goshawk as an endangered species in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia. The magistrate found that the Service had not heeded its own research showing massive loss of old-growth forests in British Columbia — 50 percent of the bird's range.

2003 – The Center challenged a backdoor effort by the timber industry to strike down old-growth forest protection guidelines instituted by the Clinton administration.

May 24, 2004 – A federal judge ruled that the second Service decision not to list the Queen Charlotte goshawk had illegally refused to consider the effect of logging throughout the bird's range. 

November 8, 2007 – The Service determined that Queen Charlotte goshawks in Canada warranted Endangered Species Act protection, but those in southeast Alaska did not.

November 2, 2009 – The Service proposed Endangered Species Act protection for the species in Canada, but left out the Alaskan birds.

Photo © Craig Flatten