In late August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) granted a reprieve to the coastal California Gnatcatcher, a tiny gray insectivore found in Southern California. Back in 2014, a group of builders associations with ties to the Pacific Legal Foundation submitted a petition to delist the bird, arguing that it isn’t a separate subspecies of California Gnatcatcher and therefore didn’t warrant protections under the Endangered Species Act. After more than a year of collecting evidence and listening to the recommendations of a panel of six independent experts who reviewed all the available scientific evidence, the USFWS declared that the coastal population is distinct enough from other California Gnatcatchers that it deserves to retain its protections under the Endangered Species Act. The gnatcatcher wasn’t the only bird to face a delisting petition on account of its status as a subspecies, or even the only bird targeted by Pacific Legal Foundation and its partners. Still...