## Facts

- The Aransas Project (TAP), a conservation nonprofit, sought to protect endangered whooping cranes wintering near the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast.
- Freshwater inflows from the Guadalupe and San Antonio Rivers affect estuarine salinity and the availability of crane food sources.
- During the 2008–2009 winter, Texas experienced severe drought conditions; 23 whooping cranes died, and necropsies on two showed signs of emaciation.
- TAP alleged Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) officials, through issuing and administering surface-water withdrawal permits in the relevant river basins, caused reduced freshwater inflows.
- TAP asserted reduced inflows increased salinity, reduced food resources, and led to malnutrition-related crane deaths—an ESA-prohibited “take.”

## Issues

1. Whether TAP proved that TCEQ officials’ permitting and water-management actions proximately caused an ESA “take” of whooping cranes during the 2008–2009 drought.
2. Whether the district court clearly erred in finding causation given the multi-factor ecological chain and limited evidence attributing deaths to state action.
3. Whether injunctive relief restricting state permitting and effectively requiring pursuit of an ESA incidental take permit was proper absent a supported finding of liability.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed the judgment for TAP.
- The court held TAP failed to establish that TCEQ’s conduct proximately caused an ESA-prohibited “take” of whooping cranes.
- The court concluded the causal chain relied on speculative or attenuated links among permitting decisions, withdrawals, inflows, salinity, food supply, and crane mortality.
- The court vacated the injunction limiting TCEQ’s ability to issue or amend water-use permits.
- The case was remanded with instructions to dismiss TAP’s ESA claims.

## Legal Principles

- ESA “take” liability requires proof that the defendant’s conduct proximately caused the alleged harm or death to an endangered species, not merely that it was one contributing factor.
- In complex ecological settings, evidence showing correlation or general environmental stress does not, without more, satisfy the causation needed for injunctive relief.
- Federal injunctive orders that substantially constrain a state natural-resource permitting system require a clear, evidentiary showing of statutory violation and causal connection.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit rejected ESA citizen-suit liability against Texas environmental regulators because the plaintiffs did not prove, with sufficient evidentiary support, that state water-permitting and management decisions proximately caused the alleged whooping crane deaths, and it therefore vacated the district court’s broad permitting injunction and ordered dismissal.


Aransas Project v. Shaw, 775 F.3d 641 (5th Cir. 2014)