OCEANO, Calif.— In response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, a federal court ruled today that the California Department of Parks and Recreation violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing motorized vehicle use that harms imperiled shorebirds at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area. The ruling also restricted that use.

“The court’s ruling makes it clear that off-roading in snowy plover habitat violates the Endangered Species Act and must stop,” said Zeynep Graves, a senior attorney at the Center. “For decades, state officials have let off-road vehicles tear through protected habitat at Oceano Dunes, injuring and killing snowy plovers, harassing roosting flocks, and degrading their habitat. These threatened shorebirds will be safer and stand a better chance at survival thanks to this ruling.”

In today’s decision the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California reaffirmed its November 2025 summary judgment ruling that found that continued vehicle use in snowy plover habitat results in the illegal “take” of protected birds. The Endangered Species Act prohibits killing or harming snowy plovers without authorization from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Today’s ruling prohibits State Parks from issuing new permits or authorizations of motorized vehicle use in snowy plover habitat at Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area south of Arroyo Grande Creek without a valid incidental take permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service, with limited exceptions for management, emergency and law-enforcement vehicles.

Although state park officials began developing a habitat conservation plan in the early 2000s in an effort to secure an Endangered Species Act permit to incidentally “take” protected wildlife, the plan remains unfinished more than two decades later. The agency has continued to authorize motorized vehicle use at Oceano Dunes without a permit, and its own records document many incidents in which snowy plovers have been killed and harmed by vehicle activity.

The Center filed its lawsuit in 2020 after providing formal notice of violations to State Parks in 2017 and 2020. The ruling confirms that Endangered Species Act protections apply to state agencies that authorize activities resulting in illegal take of protected wildlife.