On March 25, 2026, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated nearly 160 million acres of critical habitat for Alaska’s bearded and ringed seals that had been previously designated under the Endangered Species Act. The court ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service acted lawfully in 2022 when it established the areas, which include sea-ice and marine regions that it found essential to the seals’ conservation. The Ninth Circuit’s decision is available here.