## Facts

- Federal agencies responsible for the Jackson elk herd adopted a 15-year elk and bison management plan in 2007 to reduce herd size, limit disease risk, and conserve habitat.
- The agencies prepared a programmatic environmental impact statement (EIS) evaluating multiple long-term management alternatives, including elk reduction hunts within Grand Teton National Park.
- The National Park Service (NPS) authorized annual elk reduction hunts as an implementing action under the 2007 plan and EIS.
- In 2015, NPS again authorized an elk hunt within the park consistent with the 2007 plan.
- Wildlife photographers challenged the 2015 authorization under the Administrative Procedure Act, alleging NEPA required a new or supplemental EIS due to post-2007 developments and the site-specific effects of that year’s hunt.
- Plaintiffs also asserted an Endangered Species Act (ESA) claim based on alleged risks to grizzly bears, which were listed as threatened when the suit began.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the federal defendants on the NEPA claim and entered judgment on the ESA claim; one plaintiff appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether NEPA required NPS to prepare a supplemental or new EIS before authorizing the 2015 elk hunt when implementing a long-term plan supported by a prior EIS.
2. Whether the ESA claim concerning grizzly bears remained justiciable after the relevant grizzly population was delisted during the litigation.

## Decision

- The court affirmed summary judgment for the federal defendants on the NEPA claim.
- The court held NPS was not required to prepare a supplemental EIS because the environmental effects observed after 2007 were anticipated and analyzed in the existing programmatic EIS and no significant new circumstances or information were shown.
- The court rejected the argument that each annual hunt authorization constituted a separate “major Federal action” requiring a fresh NEPA review when the action was within the scope of the analyzed 15-year program.
- The court vacated the judgment on the ESA claim and remanded with instructions to dismiss it as moot because delisting eliminated any effective ESA-based relief for the alleged harms to grizzly bears.

## Legal Principles

- An agency must supplement an EIS when significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns bear on the proposed action or its impacts; the decision not to supplement is reviewed under the APA’s arbitrary-and-capricious standard.
- NEPA generally does not require a new or supplemental EIS for iterative, implementing decisions that are within the scope of a long-term program previously evaluated in a programmatic EIS, absent significant new information.
- A claim is moot when intervening events eliminate a live controversy and the court cannot grant effectual relief; when a species is delisted, ESA-based claims tied to listed-status protections may become moot.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit upheld NPS’s reliance on a programmatic EIS for annual elk hunt authorizations carried out within a long-term wildlife management plan, finding no NEPA duty to supplement absent significant new information, and required dismissal of the grizzly-bear ESA claim as moot following delisting.


Mayo v. Reynolds, 875 F.3d 11 (D.C. Cir. 2017)