More than 50 years after the bipartisan U.S. Endangered Species Act was passed unanimously in the Senate and by a vote of 355 to 4 in the House of Representatives, the federal government is proposing to remove the legislation’s teeth.
A proposed rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service would remove the regulatory definition of the term “harm” and strip away the law’s regulated habitat protections, which have been proven enormously effective at preventing species extinctions.
Currently, including the definition of the term “harm” in the regulations is critical, as it specifies that habitat destruction — and not just direct killing of animals — contributes to wildlife population declines. For that reason, the proposed changes represent not a minor technicality but a fundamental weakening of species protections.
At a time when the majority of the world’s scientists agree that the planet is facing an unprecedented extinction crisis, the proposed reduction of protection against species extinction in the United States is both unfathomable and unacceptable.
The Endangered Species Act has helped safeguard more than 1,700 species and their habitats. According to a 2019 paper published by the Center for Biological Diversity, the law has also been extraordinarily successful, preventing 99 percent of species listed from going extinct. Without regulations that protect critical habitat, we will see an increased chance of species becoming endangered and a lower chance of recovery once a species is listed as endangered or threatened, resulting in a higher rate of extinctions.
Decades of scientific research, including by our own organization, consistently demonstrates that habitat is the most critical component of a species’ survival and successful population recovery. For example, our long-term monitoring of an endangered secretive marsh bird in the San Francisco Estuary — the California Ridgway’s Rail — has demonstrated the species’ high sensitivity to changes in habitat quality and extent. With an estimated population as small as 2,000 individuals, California Ridgway’s Rails remain at elevated risk of extinction if existing habitat protections are reduced. Similarly, long-term monitoring of Northern Spotted Owls in Marin County, Calif., has demonstrated that continued protection of habitat is essential to support a stable population.
Another example: Research into the California Current ecosystem has consistently shown that whales, including endangered blue, fin and humpback whales, rely on specific oceanic habitats for foraging and migration. It has identified key ocean habitat “hotspots” where critical food sources for whales, such as krill and anchovies, are concentrated. Habitat degradation from increased vessel traffic, underwater noise, pollution and warming waters has been linked to whales being displaced from their feeding areas, as well as heightened risk of deadly collisions with ships and entanglements in fishing gear.
Our research demonstrates that habitat quality and protection are essential to prevent harm to endangered whale species and to support their recovery under the Endangered Species Act. Weakening habitat-based protections, as proposed, would undermine decades of scientific progress and regulatory advances aimed at conserving these iconic species.
In a country where a wide range of issues have become increasingly polarized by political views, the issue of protecting wildlife remains strongly bipartisan. According to a 2024 poll commissioned by the Indianapolis Zoological Society, nine in 10 Americans think the federal government should do more to strengthen the Endangered Species Act, including 93 percent of Democratic and 83 percent of Republican respondents. The proposed regulatory change therefore contradicts public opinion in addition to decades of scientific evidence. If enacted, the proposed regulatory change would counteract the significant progress for endangered species that has been made to this point.
At a minimum, we strongly urge the federal government to maintain the current regulations. The research summarized in 1995 by the National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Scientific Issues in the Endangered Species Act still rings true today: “there is no disagreement in the ecological literature about one fundamental relationship: sufficient loss of habitat will lead to species extinction.”
The science is clear that habitat is essential for the survival of wildlife populations. Without explicit habitat protections in place, endangered species will be at much greater risk of extinction, and species not yet listed as endangered will be at greater risk of population declines and listing. For these reasons, we strongly oppose removing explicit habitat protections from Endangered Species Act regulations.
Rose Snyder is director of community engagement and Liz Chamberlin is director of innovation at the California-based nonprofit Point Blue Conservation Science.