The Endangered Species Act (ESA), enacted on December 28 1973, provides a program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats in which they are found. (https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-endangered-species-act) The main federal agencies responsible for implementing the ESA are the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
Under the ESA “[t]he term `take’ means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.” The definition of harm has also been expanded by the FWS, to prohibit actions that impair the habitat of protected species and by NMFS to include “Harm [in the definition of `take’ in the Act] means an act which actually kills or injures fish or wildlife. Such an act may include significant habitat modification or degradation which actually kills or injures fish or wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including, breeding, spawning, rearing, migrating, feeding or sheltering.”
In other words the current ESA regulations include habitat degradation and destruction within the term “harm”. However, in April of 2025, a proposed rule change to the meaning of harm was submitted by FWS and the NMFS, rescinding the expanded definition of harm, but offering no further clarification for the term. This proposal seems to run contrary to the main goals of the ESA, which is to protect and conserve endangered species.
If a species loses its habitat how will it survive?
TIRN opposes rescinding the expanded definition of harm. For over 50 years, the ESA has worked, as shown by its track record of reversing over 99% of the species under its protection from the path of extinction. It seems counterintuitive to minimize the strength of the ESA when its successes are so clear.
In a study done in 2022 that analyzed the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list to “determine the relative magnitude of five major threats to species identified by the IUCN as threatened with extinction,” it was found that 88% were impacted by habitat destruction and for 71%, the main extinction pressure was habitat destruction. In fact, habitat destruction was found to have a bigger impact than all other threats combined.
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/csp2.12670
Rescinding the definition of harm to include habitat loss and degradation, thus creating a legal “gray area”, would have catastrophic consequences. Developers, miners, loggers, and oil and gas operators could more easily destroy and degrade critical habitats, pushing more and more species towards extinction.
The science is clear, habitat loss and degradation is one of the biggest threats to our endangered species, and the ESA’s job is to protect them, not clear the path to their destruction by weakening their own regulations.
