Environmental Litigation: Information on Endangered Species Act Deadline Suits, GAO-17-304: Published: Feb 28, 2017. Publicly Released: Feb 28, 2017.  “To receive protection under the Endangered Species Act, a species must be on one of the federal lists of threatened or endangered species. Section 4 of the act includes mandatory deadlines for the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to complete certain actions, such as issuing decisions on petitions to add or remove a species from either list. If the agencies miss a deadline, any person can file a lawsuit—called a deadline suit—to force them to complete these activities. We found that 141 deadlines suits were filed during fiscal years 2005-2015—mostly related to petitions to add a species to one of the lists.”