Politics
The Trump Administration Plans to ‘Upend’ the Endangered Species Act. Here’s What That Could Mean for Illinois
Tih-Fen Ting has devoted her career to the conservation and recovery of endangered species, both at the international and federal level.
Most recently, her work has focused on Illinois-listed species.
Her lab at the University of Illinois-Springfield is about to embark on a systematic survey of osprey nests in the state, the number of which has increased in recent years. But the big question is whether those nests are actually producing more osprey, Ting said.
If that turns out to be the case, ospreys — listed as threatened in Illinois — would move over into the cautiously optimistic column of species recovery in the state, along with other wins like river otters and the eastern woodrat.
With an extinction crisis looming, endangered species specialists like Ting will take every victory they can get, however tenuous it may be. A proposed change to the United States’ Endangered Species Act could threaten not only to reverse decades of progress but accelerate the pace of loss.
It all hinges on the meaning of a single word: harm.
On April 17, the Trump administration announced its intention to “rescind the regulatory definition of ‘harm’ in our Endangered Species Act.”
In plain English, the act prohibits all sorts of actions when it comes to endangered species including, trapping, capturing, harassing, wounding and killing. It also forbids “harm” and for decades, habitat modification has been included in the interpretation of harm.
The proposed rule change would rescind that interpretation, with the administration arguing that habitat modification is an overreach of harm, which it says should be more narrowly defined as intentional acts.
“So pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing. Only if a person shot a spotted owl or clubbed a manatee, or something like that,” explained Noah Greenberg, of the Center for Biological Diversity. “It would only apply in those very limited circumstances.”
The public has 30 days from the publishing of the rule change to comment, after which point a final decision will be made. Greenberg said he has little doubt the proposal will be put into effect.
“I would say the Trump administration has been working overtime to systematically undo all protections for air, water, land, wildlife, our climate,” Greenberg said. “And this is certainly consistent with that. It would really fundamentally upend how we’ve been protecting endangered species in this country for the last, more than 40 years. That said, it is up to the courts to some degree. … We’ll certainly challenge this in court.”
Life Support
Logging of old-growth forests would no longer be considered harmful to the endangered species they support, under a proposed rule change to the U.S. Endangered Species Act. (Matthew James Ferguson / iStock)
Ting said it’s nearly impossible to reconcile how habitat modification wouldn’t be detrimental to an endangered species.
“Habitat destruction, habitat loss, habitat degradation — including fragmentation — those are really the main reasons driving species to the brink of extinction,” Ting said. “Because habitats are so important. That’s the life support of any species. No species can sustain without habitat. It’s really as simple as that.”
Conservationists thought the matter was settled back in the 1990s, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the inclusion of habitat modification in the definition of harm.
That landmark decision, Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon, is perhaps best known as “the one that saved the spotted owl from loggers.”
In Babbitt, the U.S. government was the entity defending habitat modification — a stance it had adopted under Ronald Reagan. The U.S. Department of Interior took the position that the destruction of old-growth forests would be harmful to the survival of the spotted owl.
“If you don’t have to protect those lands, then the owl wouldn’t have persisted this long,” Ting said. “It depends on the protection of millions and millions of acres of national forest.”
But while the brouhaha over the spotted owl may have faded from the public’s consciousness, the notion that what’s good for the environment is bad for the economy clearly continued to fester, she said.
“Now there’s this push to really spur our economic growth through the exploitation of all the natural resources we have, whether it’s mines, it’s timber, it’s fossil fuel,” Ting said. “You can imagine how this extension of ‘harm’ to include habitat modification would not be viewed kindly by people that only have certain economic growth in mind.”
In addition to the spotted owl, Greenberg said the lesser prairie chicken and the dune sagebrush lizard spring to mind as species facing imminent risk if habitat loss is no longer considered harmful, largely because their habitat in question overlays oil and gas deposits.
Beyond Semantics
Osprey are threatened in Illinois but have been making a comeback. The state’s Endangered Species Protection Act does consider habitat modification detrimental to species’ survival. (Harry Collins / iStock)
At the same time, it’s difficult to assess how the rule change would play out in a state like Illinois, which maintains its own list of state-threatened and state-endangered species, per the Illinois Endangered Species Protection Act.
The language of the state act is similar to but also different from the federal act. For starters, Illinois’ version explicitly calls out habitat, according to Phil Willink, a researcher with the Illinois Natural History Survey.
Along with Ting, Willink is a member of Illinois’ Endangered Species Protection Board. Though the board hasn’t collectively discussed the federal proposal — the group’s next meeting is May 23 — and hasn’t issued an official statement, Willink said his personal reading of the Illinois act is that it envisions “harm as different than killing,” meaning it can be interpreted as something other than intentional injury.
“My suspicion is that Illinois will go on as business as usual, regardless of the federal level,” Willink said. “But what I think is important is to have these discussions now so that if something does come up, we can handle it proactively.”
Among the states, Illinois’ Endangered Species Act is comparatively strong and progressive, but it has gaps and weaknesses.
For example, not all species are treated equally, with animals receiving more protections than plants, Willink said.
“Plants are the property of the landowner. If the landowner does not wish to protect an endangered plant on their property, they don’t have to,” he said, and added that “Illinois has a long history of deference to landowners.”
Beyond the semantics in question — what exactly does “harm” mean? — there are larger existential issues at play, including considering the kind of world we want to live in, and the one we want to leave to future generations, Ting said.
“If you ask me, ‘Would I want my offspring or our future generations to still enjoy and watch, say, a fishing osprey? Would you want them to have the same enjoyment, and have the same wonder, and have the same appreciation of nature that we are able to do?’” she asked. “I would say yes, I would love that. I don’t want to risk losing any species if I can.”
Note: This article was published April 28, 2025, and updated with video April 29, 2025.
Contact Patty Wetli: @pattywetli | (773) 509-5623 | [email protected]
