Lawsuit Filed To Protect Cliff Swallows And Other Birds From Death And Injury In California

On Friday, along with lawyers from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, we filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking to protect Cliff Swallows that nest on two bridges from continued death, injury, and entanglement due to exclusionary netting placed on the bridges by the California Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Federal Highway Administration as part of their Highway 101 widening project in the Marin-Sonoma Narrows.  Over the past two months, more than one hundred Swallows have been killed or injured as a result of the netting, and other birds have also been killed, but the agencies have not obtained authorization for those actions under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.  The agencies also never analyzed the impacts of this project or the exclusionary netting on Cliff Swallows in general or the Cliff Swallows that nest on these two bridges in particular, in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.  The complaint can be found here, and the press release here.