Trump’s birdbrained plan weakens protections for endangered species
It’s a birdbrained idea to gut the Endangered Species Act.
Yet, President Trump did just that this week, announcing potentially devastating new rules that weaken protections credited with saving the California condor, the bald eagle, the humpback whale and the grizzly bear from extinction.
All told, the Endangered Species Act protects more than 1,500 species and plants. It boggles the mind that Trump would take aim at wildlife safeguards now. Not after scientists in May released a United Nations report showing that climate change has put 1 million plant and animal species on the verge of extinction.
Oh, right. Trump doesn’t believe in climate change, even though 97% of scientists agree humans are a cause.
Protecting wildlife was once also a Republican value. Nearly a half-century ago, the Endangered Species Act sailed through Congress with strong bipartisan support, passing 92-0 in the Senate and 390-12 in the House.
When Republican President Richard Nixon signed it into law on Dec. 28, 1973, he issued a statement in support: “Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed. It is a many faceted treasure, of value to scholars, scientists, and nature lovers alike, and it forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as Americans.”
One of the clearest examples of how that dedication to preserving wildlife benefited California is the story of one of the state’s most iconic and majestic birds, the California condor.
The birds, whose wingspans can reach 9 feet, once could be seen throughout California and beyond. But habitat loss, hunting and lead poisoning caused their population to drop to just 22 nationwide by 1982.
The situation became so dire that federal biologists captured all remaining wild condors in 1987 and began breeding them in the San Diego and Los Angeles zoos. Conservation specialists eventually released the condors’ offspring outside of zoos. In 2016, a condor chick was hatched in the wild, survived and flew out of its nest at Pinnacles National Park — the first one bred there since the 1890s.
Wildlife officials announced that the hatching of a chick in May brought the total number of condors in nature in the United States to 1,000.
The biggest threat to condors, according to scientists, remains lead poisoning from eating dead animals that have been shot by hunters.
But in 2016, Trump’s former interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, overturned an order to phase out the use of lead ammunition on more than 150 million acres of national wildlife refuges and other agency lands and waterways.
The weakening of the Endangered Species Act is an extension of this nonsensical way of thinking. Trump’s rules are designed to allow oil and gas drilling and development in areas where protected species live. Under his design, regulators will be allowed to factor in the potential loss of economic gains — think logging in old-growth forests — as a factor in whether wildlife protections are granted.
Democratic leaders in Congress are looking for ways to block the new rules from taking effect, and the state of California has already announced it will fight the weakening of the act in court.
Ensuring wildlife protections that prevent extinction of species isn’t a progressive or conservative value. It’s an American value that should be embraced by all.