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biodiversity
'No One Voted to Slaughter Hummingbirds': Trump's DOI Guts Bird Protections, Again
"Trump is breaking the law and flouting a court order by handing the fossil fuel industry and polluters this blank check to kill millions of migratory birds," one advocate said.
Apr 12, 2025
The Trump administration moved on Friday to weaken protections for migratory birds threatened by industrial activities, including oil and gas operations.
Acting Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Gregory Zerzan restored an opinion from the first Trump administration that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) "does not apply to the accidental or incidental taking or killing of migratory birds," despite the fact that this opinion was already ruled illegal in federal court.
"Trump is breaking the law and flouting a court order by handing the fossil fuel industry and polluters this blank check to kill millions of migratory birds," said Tara Zuardo, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The United States has lost billions of birds over the past 50 years, and that decline will accelerate horrifically because of this callous, anti-wildlife directive. No one voted to slaughter hummingbirds, cranes, and raptors, but this is the reality of Trump's illegal actions today."
"We're not going to succeed in addressing the crisis facing birds and other wildlife if we let this and other historic rollbacks stand."
The new directive comes as birds in the U.S. are under threat, with their numbers falling by around 30% since 1970. A number of factors are responsible for this decline, among them the climate emergency, habitat loss, falling insect populations, window strikes, and outdoor cats. However, conservationists toldThe New York Times that industrial activities would be a greater threat if not for the protection the law provides.
For example, Zuardo told the Times that if U.S. President Donald Trump's interpretation of the law had been in effect following BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010—which likely killed over 1 million birds—the company would not have been charged the around $100 million in fines that went to support bird conservation after the disaster.
Friday's directive is part of an ongoing effort over the course of both Trump administrations to weaken the MBTA so that it only targets the purposeful killing of birds, dropping enforcement against accidents such as as oil spills, drownings in uncovered oil pits, trappings in open mining pipes, and collisions with power lines or communication towers.
In 2017, lead Interior Department lawyer Daniel Jorjani issued an initial legal opinion claiming the MBTA only covered purposeful killings. This interpretation was struck down by a federal court in 2020, which argued that the act's "clear language" put it in "direct conflict" with the Trump opinion.
This didn't stop the Trump administration from issuing a final rule attempting to enshrine its interpretation of the MBTA at the end of Trump's first term, which was widely decried by bird advocates.
"We're not going to succeed in addressing the crisis facing birds and other wildlife if we let this and other historic rollbacks stand," Erik Schneider, policy manager for the National Audubon Society, said at the time.
However, months into the presidency of Joe Biden, DOI principal deputy solicitor Robert T. Anderson withdrew the initial 2017 Trump administration opinion after an appeals court, following the request of the U.S. government, dismissed the Trump administration's earlier appeal of the 2020 court decision.
"The lower court decision is consistent with the Department of the Interior's long-standing interpretation of the MBTA," Anderson wrote.
Later, the Biden administration also reversed the formal Trump-era rule weakening the MBTA.
Now, in his second term, Trump is coming for the birds again. The Biden-era withdrawal was one of 20 Biden-era opinions that the Trump DOI suspended in March. It was then officially revoked and withdrawn on Friday.
In justifying its decision, Trump's DOI cited the president's January 20 executive order "Unleashing American Energy," which calls on federal agencies to "suspend, revise, or rescind all agency actions identified as unduly burdensome," making it clear the weakening of protections is largely intended to benefit the fossil fuel and mining industries.
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Trump Proposal Called a 'Death Sentence for Plants and Animals on the Brink of Extinction'
"Humanity's survival depends on biodiversity, and no one voted to fast-track extinction," one conservationist stressed. "This is a five-alarm fire."
Apr 09, 2025
A leading conservation group is sounding the alarm over a new Trump administration attack on threatened and endangered species: an attempt to redefine "harm" as it relates to a key federal law.
The law? The Endangered Species Act (ESA), a longtime target of U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, despite being signed in 1973 by then-President Richard Nixon.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) on Tuesday noticed that the Department of the Interior—now led by Trump appointee Doug Burgum, a billionaire ally of the fossil fuel industry—sent a proposed rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review.
The Monday proposal is not yet available, but on a public online dashboard it is titled, "Redefinition of 'Harm.'" There is also a Tuesday submission from the Department of Commerce titled, "Defining 'Harm' Under the Endangered Species Act."
CBD called it "the first step toward stripping habitat protections from rare plants and animals headed toward extinction."
"The malignant greed driving these policies threatens to greatly increase destruction of the natural world and turbocharge the extinction crisis."
Under the ESA, people cannot "take" an endangered species of fish or wildlife—and take is defined as "harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect." Within that definition, harm means injuring or killing wildlife.
The law states that "such act may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering."
Noah Greenwald, CBD's co-director of endangered species, explained Tuesday that "weakening the definition of harm would cut the heart out of the Endangered Species Act and be a death sentence for plants and animals on the brink of extinction."
"The Trump administration has been systematically killing protections for our air, water, wildlife, and climate like a vicious cancer," he continued. "The malignant greed driving these policies threatens to greatly increase destruction of the natural world and turbocharge the extinction crisis. We'll keep fighting for each and every one of these plants and animals."
"Unless habitat destruction is prohibited, spotted owls, sea turtles, salmon and so many more animals and plants won't have a chance," Greenwald warned. "Humanity's survival depends on biodiversity, and no one voted to fast-track extinction. This is a five-alarm fire."
TRUMP TO ENDANGERED SPECIES: DROP DEAD! The Trump administration launched a process to redefine what it means to “harm” threatened & endangered species, the first step toward stripping habitat protections from rare plants & animals headed toward extinction. biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press...
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— Ted Zukoski (@tedzukoski.bsky.social) April 8, 2025 at 4:04 PM
The redefinition push is just part of the GOP's assault on the ESA. As Common Dreamsreported in late March, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have been working to advance a pair of laws, the ESA Amendments Act, which aims to streamline regulatory and permitting processes, and the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, which would strip federal protections from the gray wolf within 60 days and prohibit judicial review of the action.
There have also been direct attacks on the law from the White House. When Trump returned to office in January, he swiftly declared a "national energy emergency" intended to deliver on his promise to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-wrecking fossil fuels. A section of the executive order effectively says the ESA can't be an obstacle to energy development, which concerned conservationists.
"This executive order, in a lot of ways, is a gift to the oil and gas industry and is being sold as a way to respond to the emergency declaration by President Trump," Gib Brogan, a campaign director with conservation group Oceana, toldThe Associated Press in January. "There is no emergency. The species continue to suffer. And this executive order will only accelerate the decline of endangered species in the United States."
CBD's Greenwald also blasted the order at the time, declaring that "with U.S. oil production at an all-time high, the real national emergencies are the extinction crisis and climate change."
"We're losing plant and animal species at an unprecedented rate, and our planet is heating up with dangerous speed," he stressed, just weeks after the conclusion of the hottest year in human history. "Extinction and climate change are chewing up the web of life that ultimately supports virtually everything we know and love, and Trump's order will only accelerate the destruction."
"This executive order is a death warrant for polar bears, lesser prairie chickens, whooping cranes and so many more species on the brink of extinction," he added. "This unconscionable measure is completely out of step with most Americans, an overwhelming majority of whom support protecting species from extinction and preserving our natural heritage. We'll use every legal tool we can to ensure dangerous fossil fuel projects don’t drive species to extinction."
The president continues to pursue fossil fuel-friendly executive actions. On Tuesday, he signed multiple orders that aim to boost the coal industry—which Jason Rylander of CBD's Climate Law Institute said "take his worship of dirty fossil fuels to a gross and disturbingly reckless new level."
"Forcing old coal plants to keep spewing pollution into our air and water means more cancer, more asthma, and more premature deaths," Rylander noted. "This is yet another assault on efforts to preserve a livable climate, and it's now abundantly clear that Trump's promise to give America the cleanest air and water was a bold-faced lie."
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Cutting Conservation Funding Endangers our Food System
The Trump administration is gutting USDA funding that helps small farms preserve local heritage breeds that boost the biodiversity and resilience of U.S. livestock.
Apr 09, 2025
As part of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, funding for several programs, including conservation contracts and local food purchasing for schools, was cut or frozen.
The lack of funding of these and uncertainty for other programs is already having a chilling effect on farmers and our food systems, and the impacts have been immediate and wide-ranging. These programs support critical conservation initiatives in agriculture—from assisting local farms and sustainable agriculture research to farmer technical aid. These local programs also support smaller-scale farmers to maintain local or heritage breeds such as Galloway cattle or Tamworth pigs that are not suitable for large-scale, industrial agriculture.
As a result, farms and livelihoods throughout the country are threatened. These programs provide vital support for U.S. agricultural infrastructure and long-term sustainability including the diversity of food available to the public. The link between biodiversity and food security is well known—vibrant biotic life supports soil fertility, pest control, pollination, water quality, and sustainable agriculture. Genetic biodiversity in our foods is also important—domesticated plants and animals that are genetically diverse are less likely to succumb to the same diseases or pests, and many have adapted to a range of environmental and climatic conditions. The more genetically diverse our food system is, the less vulnerable it is to collapse.
Local breeds are living genetic repositories. They are the result of long-term histories and cannot be simply made in a laboratory. They are the future of our food security.
For this reason, conservation efforts must include protecting domestic animal breeds to establish living genetic banks for future food security during times of abrupt climate change. Unlike plants that can be propagated from seeds stored in vast seed banks, the most efficient way to maintain biodiversity in domesticated livestock is by keeping herds of local or heritage breeds, since sperm cryopreservation is expensive; susceptible to damage or loss; and limited to rich, industrialized nations and communities. Breed conservation can occur on a local level and doesn’t need to be expensive—it’s been successfully done in the past.
Almost 100 years ago, Texas longhorns—the iconic emblem of the state of Texas—almost went extinct. At the time, American tastes in meat favored fattier cattle breeds and the lean, grass-fed longhorns were unpopular, difficult to transport in railroad cars due to their big horns, and not economically viable for ranchers. This breed already had a long history in the area and was particularly well adapted to the hot, arid climate of southern Texas. In the 1920s when the breed was on the brink of extinction, U.S. Forest Service employees established a protected herd at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, and a small group of ranchers established other small herds in Oklahoma and Texas, including in Texas state parks. It was through the efforts of this small group of people that the breed was kept alive. As American tastes in meat changed, Texas longhorns became economically popular once again.
Today, they are highly valued for their lean meat and their specific climatic adaptation. They are also living genetic repositories—their specific genetic adaptations are now used to help create new breeds of cattle for dealing with future climate change such as those predicted for several parts of the southern United States and elsewhere.
According to data collected by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, Texas longhorns are one of over 8,700 breeds of domesticated animals used for food production on the planet today. Most are part of the “big five”: cattle, sheep, chickens, goats, and pigs. Over 8,000 of these breeds are local—recorded in only one country and most of them are specific to particular areas or regions like Texas longhorns, Gulf Coast sheep in Florida and Louisiana, and Mulefoot pigs in Missouri.
Many of these breeds, however, are also vulnerable to extinction—they are not as profitable and farmers focus on a few breeds to maximize products for national and global markets. There are estimates that over 100 livestock breeds have gone extinct in the last 15 years, and29.54% of existing livestock breeds worldwide are at risk of extinction, while for the majority of breeds we lack data on their status, size of population, or likelihood for survival for the future.
Why are local breeds important? They are the result of centuries and even millennia of adaptation to their environments through human management and natural selection pressures. They are living gene banks of biodiversity and have special traits in comparison with industrial livestock—some are resistant to parasites or diseases; feed on different forage; or are highly fertile or long-lived. Others thrive in hot or humid environments such as Gulf Coast sheep that don’t have wool on their bellies, legs, or heads.
Despite many years of research, current information on these breeds is sorely lacking. There is very limited genetic data on most of the economically important animal breeds on the planet, and the pressures of industrialized agriculture are pushing farmers to focus on the few breeds with the current highest economic rewards. But this comes at a cost—today’s industrial farming strategies are not sustainable for an unknown future. Local breeds are living genetic repositories. They are the result of long-term histories and cannot be simply made in a laboratory. They are the future of our food security.
Many species are on the brink of extinction and need conservation help, and many are perhaps more photogenic or emblematic than cows or sheep. However, livestock breeds need this help too if we want to secure genetic diversity in our foods. This conservation doesn’t need to be expensive—dedicated farmers and conservation groups should be financially supported in maintaining local breeds. If the federal government is turning its back on these initiatives, state and local governments need to help fill the gap. Small investments today will pay dividends in the future to keep our food systems resilient.
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