No. 21-1873

DISTRICT 4 LODGE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS AND AEROSPACE WORKERS LOCAL LODGE 207; DAMON FAMILY LOBSTER COMPANY, INC.; FOX ISLAND LOBSTER COMPANY, LLC; FRANK THOMPSON,

Plaintiffs, Appellees,

v.

GINA M. RAIMONDO, in her official capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce; JANET COIT, in her official capacity as Assistant Administrator of the NOAA Fisheries; NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE,

Defendants, Appellants.

No. 21-1874

DISTRICT 4 LODGE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS AND AEROSPACE WORKERS LOCAL LODGE 207; DAMON FAMILY LOBSTER COMPANY, INC.; FOX ISLAND LOBSTER COMPANY, LLC; FRANK THOMPSON,

Plaintiffs, Appellees,

v.

CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY; CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION, INC.; DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE,

Intervenor-Defendants, Appellants.

APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE

[Hon. Lance E. Walker, U.S. District Judge] Before

Lynch, Kayatta, and Gelpí Circuit Judges.

Rachel E. Heron, Attorney, Environment & National Resources Division, Department of Justice, with whom Todd Kim, Assistant Attorney General, Environment & National Resources Division, Department of Justice, Andrew C. Mergen, Alison C. Finnegan, Brett Grosko, Taylor A. Mayhall, and Erika B. Kranz, Attorneys, Environment & National Resources Division, Department of Justice, Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Maine, John G. Osborn, Chief, Civil Division, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Maine, and John Almeida, Attorney- Advisor, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, were on brief, for federal appellants. Kristen Monsell, with whom Erica A. Fuller and Jane P. Davenport were on brief, for intervenor-appellants. Alfred C. Frawley IV, with whom Jay P. McCloskey, Paula D. Silsby, Thimi R. Mina, and McCloskey, Mina, Cunniff & Frawley, LLC were on brief, for appellees.

July 12, 2022 KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. In August 2021, the National Marine Fisheries Service (the "Agency") issued a regulation that, among other things, prohibited lobster fishing with vertical buoy lines (the most common form of lobster fishing) each year between mid-October and January in a 967 square mile zone of the Atlantic Ocean, dubbed the LMA 1 Restricted Area. The stated purpose of this seasonal closure was to guard against the possibility that the large proliferation of lobster trap lines customarily placed in the LMA 1 Restricted Area during that time would cause the death of one or more of the few, severely endangered North Atlantic right whales that the Agency estimated could travel in that area during those months.

Plaintiffs -- a union of lobster fishers, two lobster- fishing companies, and an individual lobster fisher -- challenged the regulation as arbitrary and capricious in United States district court, seeking an injunction barring the seasonal closure of the LMA 1 Restricted Area to buoy-line lobster fishing. After the district court granted a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the seasonal closure, the federal government and intervening conservation groups appealed and sought a stay of the district court's order.

After briefing and careful consideration of both the district court's ruling and the record, we stayed the preliminary injunction. See Dist. 4 Lodge of the Int'l Ass'n of Machinists

- 3 - Loc. Lodge 207 v. Raimondo, 18 F.4th 38, 49–50 (1st Cir. 2021). In an unusually extensive stay order, we spelled out in detail why we found it unlikely th