Conservation groups are again going to court as part of a nearly two-decade-long fight to protect a small forest-dwelling rodent native to the Oregon Coast.

The Center For Biological Diversity, Cascadia Wildlands, Oregon Wild and the Bird Alliance Of Oregon sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on July 17 in U.S. District Court in Portland over the agency’s decision not to provide the north Oregon Coast red tree vole federal Endangered Species Act protections. The suit names the agency’s director, Paul Souza, and Doug Burgum, head of the U.S. Department of the Interior, as defendants.

The suit is the latest in an ongoing effort since 2007 to protect red tree voles, which live in the canopy of old growth conifer forests and feed on the needles of Douglas fir, Sitka spruce and wester

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