On August 26, 1998, WLF had filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit seeking to uphold a lower court decision that dismissed a lawsuit brought by environmental groups under the ESA. The activist groups sought to stop the building of a critically needed public high school in Tucson, Arizona, alleging that the construction of the school and its operation would impair the Arizona pygmy-owl by disturbing its habitat. WLF argued in its brief that the plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of showing that the construction of the school would in fact harm the owl. Indeed, the court found that the owl does not even inhabit the property in question.
