This One Word Change Could Gut Our Strongest Conservation Law

This summer, I came face-to-face with a species whose success is a testament to the power of the Endangered Species Act. While hiking alongside the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument, I saw two bald eagles perched atop a cottonwood engaged in conversation. 

Although the bald eagle was designated an emblem of the United States over two centuries ago, bald eagle populations plummeted in the 20th century because of habitat loss and the use of the pesticide DDT. In 1973, Congress nearly unanimously passed the ESA. Republican President Richard Nixon then signed it into law. Bald eagles were officially listed under the act in 1978, and after the US banned DDT, bald eagles started to rebound. They were considered fully recovered in 1997.

In the five decades since the ESA was signed into law, it has protected over 1,700 plant and animal species and boasts a 99 percent success rate in keeping endangered species alive. Despite its success, the ESA has been attacked, largely by those who profit from extinction, explained Brendan Cummings, conservation director for the Center for Biological Diversity. Still, he said, "it has survived relatively unscathed and remains the country’s—and perhaps the world’s—most important law for the protection of biodiversity."

Now, the current US administration aims to upend environmental precedent. In April, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which both administer the ESA, proposed a one-word rule change that could completely undermine the foundation of the law. Under the proposal, the agencies would rescind the word harm from the law. While seemingly small, this one-word change would kneecap the ability of federal agencies to protect species against their greatest threat: habitat loss.

A final decision from USFW and NOAA will likely be made this fall, following a fast-tracked 30-day public comment period, which closed in May. 

Proposed one-word rule change

The Trump administration does not have the authority to change the ESA. Instead, it is trying to change how it is implemented. Under the ESA, the 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 notice to alter the definition reads, “Harm in the definition of 'take' in the act means an act which actually kills or injures wildlife. Such an 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.” This weakens the ESA's direct ability to protect habitat.

"Habitat loss is the greatest manageable threat to imperiled species in America," said Cummings. "The administration’s interpretation of the ESA as only addressing intentional killing of wildlife would render the law toothless for the majority of imperiled species in the country. Fortunately, the plain language of the ESA and 50 years of court rulings make clear that protecting habitat is one of the primary purposes of the statute."

The current definition of harm was implemented in 1975 and expanded in 1981 during the Reagan administration. In 1995, a logging family challenged this definition of harm in the Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon case. The group claimed that adhering to this rule to protect the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and northern spotted owl habitat caused them economic hardship. The Supreme Court disagreed, upholding the definition of harm.

The rescission of harm from the ESA, alongside the current proposal to rescind the Roadless Rule for Forest Service lands, are efforts to take the backroads to the same destination—increased extraction and development, say conservation groups.

"This is all part of an effort to open up lands to ensure that there are as few restrictions possible on logging, on drilling, on mining, on development, on extractive uses where human interests and species interests collide," said Jane P. Davenport, a senior attorney for Defenders of Wildlife.

Many wildlife advocates fear that the newly appointed director of the US Fish and Wildlife, Brian Nesvik, will likely grease the wheels for this to happen. A former game warden and director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Nesvik previously stated that the Endangered Species Act “must be pruned.” In a prior testimony before Congress, Nesvik advocated for removing ESA protections for grizzlies.

Everyone benefits under the ESA

Chase Choate, an enrolled member and environmental director for the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe, explained that in Quechan culture, wildlife and habitat are inextricably linked. "All wildlife share habitat and food sources. Making sure our land is healthy is success, both culturally and spiritually."

Along the Lower Colorado River, where the tribe's reservation lands are located, habitat protections for endangered species, such as the Southwestern willow flycatcher and Yuma Ridgway’s rail, help maintain healthy ecosystems for all wildlife and humans. "Any bird (or animal) can potentially become an endangered species," Choate said. "If you are deliberately harming wildlife or habitat, that's blasphemy. We have these animals in our stories; it's in our origin songs, our creation stories, our bird songs."

ESA protections also safeguard healthy watersheds and drinking water. In 2023, a stretch of the Rio Grande flowing through Albuquerque went dry. Last year, WildEarth Guardians settled a lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) over their failure to protect the Rio Grande habitat for four endangered species, especially the Rio Grande silvery minnow.

The settlement launched a consultation process, which led to the federal government creating a new biological opinion, a framework for how federal activities impact threatened and endangered species. Following the settlement, the MRGCD was required to fallow portions of farmland or dedicate portions of its San Juan Chama water allocation to environmental flows.

Daniel Timmons, the climate and health program director for WildEarth Guardians, said the effects of this year's drought, which again induced drying on the Middle Rio Grande, would have been worse without the settlement. The durability of the ESA's habitat protections is increasingly critical as wildlife habitats and watersheds endure the impacts of climate change and human development.

Wildly popular

Polls conducted from 1996 to 2025 show that support for the Endangered Species Act is consistently high. Eighty-four percent of Americans supported the ESA, with conservatives showing less opposition to the ESA over time. More than half of the surveyed population in 2025 felt the ESA should be more protective than its current status.

The study showed rural communities are more likely to have proximity to endangered species, and viewing endangered species creates significant tourism revenue. One cost-benefit study for NOAA reveals that the North Atlantic right whale generates $2.3 billion in revenue for the whale-watching industry. Another study from 2021 found that wolf tourism in the Yellowstone region generates over $80 million annually for the region.

While the value of protecting wildlife and imperiled species is widely recognized, Cummings is concerned that, "absent comparable public opposition to what we saw with the proposed public lands selloff, the administration is likely to go forward with its rulemakings, and the future of the ESA will rest with the courts." 

Despite the ESA's proven ability to keep species alive, its critics, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, cite the low rate of species removal from the list—fewer than 80 percent of listed species—as its key failing. In a story for Inside Climate News, ecologist David Wilcove explained this is because, “We continue to wait until species are in dire straits before we protect them under the Endangered Species Act, and in doing that, we are more or less ensuring that it’s going to be very difficult to recover them and get them off the list.”

An emblem of the US and the ESA

Beside the Green River, the bald eagles continued their conversation for half an hour. The Endangered Species Act protects this watershed for four federally listed fish, the endangered bonytail, Colorado pikeminnow, razorback sucker, and threatened humpback chub. Further north, the upper Green River watershed is habitat for endangered grizzly bears and gray wolves. These protections ripple to benefit 40 million people in seven Western states and Mexico that rely on the Green-Colorado River watershed for drinking water—a river system that is also considered endangered.

Bald eagle habitat is widespread across the continental United States, meaning the protections that revived this species have benefited the entire country. These majestic birds may be official symbols of the United States, but they're also symbols of the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act. To date, 1,300 species are federally listed as endangered or threatened, and the ESA continues to protect critical habitats for both wildlife and humans.