The whooping cranes are taking a whoopin’.
Donald Trump’s administration rescinded the regulatory definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act, removing habitat destruction from the law’s core protections for threatened and endangered wildlife.
This weakens the ESA and puts the lives of many animals and ecosystems in jeopardy, including the whooping crane.
The International Crane Foundation, established in 1973, opposes the move. The Whooping Crane was part of the first cohort of species protected by the ESA, which was signed into law that same year.
“Whooping cranes are living proof that the Endangered Species Act works,” Rich Beilfuss, president and CEO of the International Crane Foundation, said in a statement. “This species was on the very brink of extinction — down to just a handful of birds — when the ESA became law. It is the protection of habitat, as much as protection of the birds themselves, that has allowed the population to grow from fewer than 50 to more than 500 today.”
The International Crane Foundation will continue to monitor the implementation of the new rule and how it affects whooping cranes across North America.
“You cannot protect a species while allowing the destruction of the only places it can live,” Beilfuss said in a statement. “A whooping crane cannot nest in a wetland that has been drained, and it cannot feed in a grassland that has been paved over or converted. Removing habitat destruction from the definition of ‘harm’ does not change what actually harms wildlife — it only changes whether the law is allowed to do anything about it.”
