Trump Administration Moves To Weaken Endangered Species Act, Species In National Parks Could Suffer

Critical endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles, which rely on Padre Island National Seashore, could be impacted by Trump administration changes to the Endangered Species Act/NPS file

Editor's note: This story will be updated.

In the wake of a report stating that nearly 30,000 species worldwide are at risk of going extinct, the Trump administration on Monday announced changes to the Endangered Species Act that opponents warned would weaken protections for species in danger of being lost.

Across the National Park System the plan to revise how critical habitat for threatened and endangered species is determined and to lessen protections for threatened species under the act stands to impact migratory species as well as those species that need ESA protections to prevent them from sliding to "endangered" from "threatened" status.

Species that rely on habitat in and around national parks that could be impacted range from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears, which just recently regained threatened status after a federal judge said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service erred in delisting the bears, to Kemp's ridley sea turtles, the smallest of sea turtles and which are considered critically endangered. 

Under the changes announced Monday, the administration said consideration of critical habitat for threatened and endangered species would begin with areas where those species currently exist "before unoccupied areas are considered."

"The regulations impose a heightened standard for unoccupied ardas to be designated as critical habitat," an Interior Department release said.

Additionally, the changes would lessen ESA protections threatened species receive; currently, threatened and endangered species receive the same protections under the act.

The passenger pigeon, Ivory-billed woodpecker, woodland caribou, Puerto Rican shrew, sea mink, California grizzly bear, Eastern cougar, and the Southern Rocky Mountain wolf. These are just a handful of the 100+ species that have gone extinct, or are teetering on that precipice, and are missing from the National Park System.

In south Florida, not only are highly endangered Florida panthers barely hanging on (though their population currently seems to be moving in the right direction) in an increasingly crowded landscape of developments and roads, but invasive Burmese pythons are feasting on birds and small animals in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park.

According to the National Parks Conservation Association, efforts to grow populations of the Red wolf in the Southeast (and Great Smoky Mountains National Park) have been hampered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the very agency that's supposed to keep species from blinking out. At Haleakala National Park in Hawai'i, more than 100 plant, animal, and insect species are listed as either endangered for threatened. 

These species' fate is not due to indifference by the National Park Service, but rather by a lack of resources. According to the National Parks Conservation Association and Defenders of Wildlife, Congress has not adequately funded ESA programs within the Fish and Wildlife Service. The lack of resources has left an estimated 500 species still waiting for the Fish and Wildlife Service to assess whether they need ESA protection.