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It’s no longer illegal to destroy the one thing #EndangeredSpecies need most to survive

The Trump administration’s twisted definition of one word is putting hundreds of rare animals at risk.

by Benji Jones
Jul 20, 2026

Excerpt: "It’s the meaning of one of those words — harm — that matters most here. Up until the recent rule, the government’s definition for harm included destroying an animal’s habitat if it impairs essential behaviors, such as breeding. That might include, say, building a hotel on top of a beach that endangered sea turtles use for nesting. Such a definition was important because destroying the habitat of an already imperiled species could push it over the edge, #wildlife advocates say.

"What’s more is that, according to the language of the law itself, the purpose of the #ESA includes conserving '#ecosystems upon which endangered species and #ThreatenedSpecies depend.'

"The Trump administration, however, just threw out that definition of harm and the unambiguous protection it has long afforded habitat. And while it didn’t offer a new definition, the administration said that it agrees with a much narrower interpretation of the term — articulated three decades ago in a dissent by the late conservative Justice #AntoninScalia — that only includes actions that directly and intentionally harm individual animals, such as capturing a sea turtle to eat or keep as a pet.

" 'For years, federal agencies abused the ESA to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,' #DougBurgum, Secretary of the Interior Department, which oversees endangered species protections, said in a statement. 'That approach turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people’s lives, and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended. This action restores common sense, respects private property, provides much-needed certainty for landowners and follows the statute Congress actually passed.' (The Interior Department declined to provide a comment on our reporting, pointing us instead to its press release and the notice in the Federal Register.)

"Under the new rule, set to take effect in September, 'harm' no longer explicitly includes actions that may accidentally or indirectly doom a wildlife population to extinction. A company building luxury villas on a private beach that endangered sea turtles need for survival would not unambiguously be considered take — and thus be illegal — unless the company knew it’d crush turtle eggs or the turtles themselves in the process. Neither would logging #OldGrowthForests that #EndangeredBirds inhabit, building wind turbines that are known to kill endangered bats, or constructing a road that would likely get endangered snakes run over.

"The administration’s interpretation of take 'really completely blows up the #EndangeredSpeciesAct,' said J.B. Ruhl, a lawyer at Vanderbilt University and a leading expert on the ESA."

#ProtectTheSacred #ProtectNature #TrumpSucks #USPol #Extinction