Conservation groups notified the National Marine Fisheries Service of their intent to sue the agency for delaying Endangered Species Act protection for the pinto abalone, an approximately six-inch snail with an iridescent inner shell that was once common in rocky, intertidal coasts from Alaska to Baja California.

The pinto abalone is in desperate need of federal protection; throughout much of its historic range, pinto abalone populations have plummeted from 80 percent to as much as 99 percent, and numbers continue to fall along the Pacific coast. “Overfishing nearly wiped out pinto abalone, and a warming and acidifying ocean now threatens to finish them off,” said Kiersten Lippmann, a biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The best way to prevent extinction is immediate protection under the Endangered Species Act.”

Read More | Center for Biological Diversity | See Also: Rare Abalone One Step Closer to Endangered Species Act Protection