- The Trump administration has removed habitat destruction from the regulatory definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act.
- The change could make it easier for farming, drilling, mining, logging, and development to proceed in places where endangered species live.
- Because habitat loss is one of the main drivers of extinction, protecting animals while allowing the destruction of the places they need offers limited protection in practice.
- The decision also weakens the United States’ standing when it asks other countries to conserve forests, wetlands, rivers, and other important habitats.
For more than half a century, the United States treated the protection of habitat as part of protecting endangered wildlife. The Endangered Species Act prohibited killing protected wildlife, and the government interpreted that protection to include severe damage to the habitat needed for feeding, breeding, and shelter. A developer could violate the act by removing a nesting tree if doing so caused a protected animal to die or fail to reproduce, even if no animal was struck by the machinery.
On July 10, the Trump administration finalized a rule removing the regulatory definition of “harm” from the act. Under the discarded definition, destroying or degrading habitat counted as harm when it killed or injured wildlife by disrupting feeding, breeding, or sheltering. The new policy takes effect on September 14. Direct injury and killing remain prohibited. Habitat destruction, on its own, will no longer count as an illegal “take” under the law. The administration says the change follows the statute more faithfully and will reduce permitting costs for landowners, farmers, energy producers, and other businesses.
The distinction between harming an animal and destroying the habitat it needs does not reflect how wildlife survives. A manatee can starve if dredging and coastal development destroy the seagrass on which it feeds. An ocelot can lose the dense thornscrub on which the remaining South Texas population depends. Salmon may survive the machinery that alters a river, then fail to reproduce because the changed river no longer supports spawning.
Other provisions of the Endangered Species Act continue to offer some protection. Federal agencies must still consult wildlife officials before taking actions that may jeopardize a listed species. They also remain barred from destroying or damaging designated critical habitat. States may enforce stronger protections. Those safeguards do not cover every case. Much habitat lies outside designated areas, and many private projects receive no federal funding and require no federal permit, so the consultation requirement does not apply. The former definition could still apply when habitat loss injured or killed wildlife. Removing it gives farming, drilling, mining, logging, and real estate development more room to proceed in places where listed animals live.
The rule also abandons a legal interpretation that had remained in place for decades. In 1995’s Babbitt v. Sweet Home, the Supreme Court upheld the inclusion of habitat destruction within the meaning of harm. Today, however, federal agencies no longer feel bound by that precedent. Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Loper Bright—which stripped federal agencies of their regulatory deference (Chevron deference)—the administration claims it is restoring the “single, best meaning” of the original 1973 text. In doing so, it relies on the reasoning of Justice Antonin Scalia’s famous dissent in the 1995 case, which argued that only conduct aimed directly at an animal should count. Environmental groups and two Indigenous nations have gone to court. Litigation may alter or delay the rule, but for now, developers and regulators have been told that habitat destruction will face fewer restrictions under the act.
The change is significant partly because the United States helped shape the international approach to protecting endangered wildlife. In 1973, representatives of 80 countries met in Washington to negotiate the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Later that year, President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, which Congress passed with broad political support. The law reflected an understanding that development could cause losses that could not be repaired and that the government had a responsibility to prevent them.
The United States did not always meet the standard it promoted. It continued to consume resources at a high rate, its demand helped drive environmental damage abroad, and Congress often failed to provide enough money to carry out the ambitions written into environmental law. The Endangered Species Act still required developers and federal agencies to consider whether their projects could push a species closer to extinction. It also made it easier for American officials to ask other countries to protect forests, rivers, and wetlands.
The new rule makes those requests less persuasive. Other governments make their own choices. Decisions made by major economies can still make similar policies easier to defend elsewhere. An official weighing a mine against a rare frog, or a new road against an isolated forest population, can now point to the United States and cite the same concerns about predictable rules and the cost of compliance. Those arguments already influence decisions about how land is used around the world. The new rule makes them easier to defend as reasonable policy.
The leading global assessment of biodiversity found that changes in land use have had a greater effect on terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems than any other direct pressure. Species usually reach the endangered list after their range has contracted and their populations have become fragmented. Further habitat loss at that stage leaves little chance of recovery.
American diplomats and conservation officials will also find it harder to ask other countries to limit habitat destruction. Countries with large remaining forests are regularly asked to limit agricultural expansion, mining, road building, and settlement to protect biodiversity that benefits the wider world. The people making those decisions may face immediate economic needs and real political risks. Requests from the United States will carry less weight after its own government decided that destroying essential habitat need not count as harming an endangered animal.
Many effects will appear slowly, and no single permit or project may seem decisive. A breeding site may be cleared. The remaining animals may persist for years, but become increasingly isolated. Fewer young may survive, and each drought or disease outbreak will become harder to absorb. A species can remain in field guides and government databases long after it has disappeared from most of the places where people once encountered it.
The rule will affect decisions about individual permits, land sales, drilling plans, and development projects. Many losses will become apparent only after the officials responsible have left office. Officials and lawyers will debate the meaning of the statute and the cost of complying with it. Wildlife will have less food, fewer breeding sites, and smaller populations that are less able to survive the next drought or disease outbreak.
The Endangered Species Act recognized that preventing extinction sometimes required leaving some habitat undeveloped. The law can treat an animal as separate from its habitat. The animal cannot.
Banner image: Florida Manatee. Photo credit: Robert Bonde / USGS
Cite this article
Rhett Ayers Butler (2026). America’s retreat from wildlife protection will be felt far beyond its borders. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323961Credits
