HLS Animal Law Clinic Announces Intent to Sue Over Manatee Protection

Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic announced last week their intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the agency’s failure to respond to a previous petition filed for increased protection of West Indian manatees.

The announcement came via a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that the clinic intends to represent.

In November 2022, the clinic filed a petition to list the manatee as an endangered species.

“In 2017, they were down-listed to be a threatened species,” Sophia Pereira, an HLS student who works at the clinic, said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has “a year from the date that the listing petition was submitted to issue a 12 month finding,” according to Pereira.

“That’s what this notice of intent to sue is about, because the year deadline would have been November 21, 2023, and we’re now in 2024,” she said

Though the clinic is preparing to pursue legal action, they are hoping the issue will be resolved before an official lawsuit is filed.

“We, at the end of the notice, had issued a statement that we would love to discuss with the Service prospects for resolution,” Pereira said.

Mary Hollingsworth, the clinic’s director, added that listing decisions require “lots of steps.”

“We’re hopeful that they will issue a warranted finding,” Hollingsworth said. “If there is a 12-month warranted finding, then the agency would have to go through the rulemaking process, issue a proposed rule, and then a final rule.”

In the official press release, Jonathan Smith, a student attorney at the clinic, said re-designating manatees as endangered would signal “that the Service is willing to take the necessary steps to safeguard their survival.”

“Aquatic animals in general don’t get the focus that land animals get,” Smith said in an interview.

Smith added that projects focused on marine animals are significant because he believes they don’t “get the care they deserve in the animal protection movement.”

“I’m a Floridian and I grew up around manatees,” Pereira said. “I was really interested in getting involved and I was really hopeful that the project would be continuing for this semester and luckily for me, it was, and so once I joined the clinic, I was very excited to just dive into this.”

The clinic is not only focused on manatee protection, however.

“This is just one of quite a few projects,” Hollingsworth said. “It’s quite a range related to both wildlife and captive animals.”

“I would say half of the work is litigation oriented, and half is policy and advocacy oriented,” Hollingsworth said, adding that the overall aim of the clinic is “to improve the conditions for animals.”

The intent to sue comes right before the beginning of Harvard Law School’s Animal Law Week, which runs from March 25 to March 29.