The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Sharon S. Tisher is a lecturer emerita at the University of Maine.
It’s a fundamental principle of wildlife biology that protecting imperiled species against destruction and fragmentation of their habitat is essential to conserve biological diversity. Habitat loss is the single biggest reason that many species face extinction. Yet, the Trump administration has proposed a rewrite of the definition of “harm” in rules under the Endangered Species Act.
The ESA prohibits the ‘‘take’’ of endangered species, and defines “take” to mean “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any
such conduct.” Regulations under the ESA define “harm” to include “significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering.” The proposed change would remove this clause.
In my assessment, the Trump administration proposal is illegal, ill-advised, and intended to disable the law that has worked to protect America’s wildlife for more than 50 years. You can post a comment on or before May 19. Comments can be anonymous, and email addresses will not be published.
The administration isn’t likely to modify the proposal even in the face of strong, well-reasoned opposition, but comments are counted and could have an impact in the legal challenge to the final regulation. Comments can be short, most are. This should help: A highly regarded Supreme Court decision has resoundingly rejected this very same attempt to disable the ESA.
In the 1995 Supreme Court decision of Babbitt v. Sweet Home, industry interests challenged the same habitat protection provisions that this administration seeks to revoke. A 6-3 decision upheld the rule: “Given Congress’ clear expression of the ESA’s broad purpose to protect endangered and threatened wildlife, the Secretary’s definition of ‘harm’ is reasonable. … The dictionary definition of the verb form of ‘harm’ is ‘to cause hurt or damage to: injure.’ … In the context of the ESA, that definition naturally encompasses habitat modification … Second, the broad purpose of the ESA supports the Secretary’s decision to extend protection against activities that cause the precise harms Congress enacted the statute to avoid. … As stated in §2 of the Act, among its central purposes is ‘to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved ….’”
Case in point: The Gulf of Maine population of Atlantic salmon has been listed as endangered for over 24 years. In 2000, the fish were listed for certain rivers in Maine. In 2009, the list was expanded to include upper reaches of the Penobscot River. This listing was highly controversial, widely opposed by Maine politicians as a threat to industry and agriculture, a fact that probably led to limiting the geographic scope of the listing in 2000.
Ultimately the listing led to major progress in habitat restoration for salmon: the removal of 17 dams and numerous other barriers on the Penobscot River watershed, structures that had obstructed passage to spawning waters. The listing and consequent habitat restorations have brought the Atlantic Salmon back from the brink of extinction to a relatively stable and slowly growing population. In 2023, the Maine Department of Marine Resources reported a count of 1,520 Atlantic salmon on the Penobscot, the highest number reported in more than decade.
These steps also resulted in significant expansion in the numbers of two other listed endangered fish swimming upriver — short nose and Atlantic sturgeon — and spectacular growth of a commercially harvested species, river herring, which serve as bait for the lobster industry, and including Maine’s famed alewives, a key part of the ecosystem and a traditional food source.
As writer and professor of evolutionary biology E.O. Wilson once said: “I will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished, and never to be surrendered without a struggle.”
Go write, as if nature depended on it.
Comments can be posted online or mailed to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0034, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: PRB/3W, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803.
