International Crane Foundation: Responds to rollback of Endangered Species Act habitat protections

BARABOO, WIS. — Today the Trump administration finalized their decision to rescind the longstanding regulatory definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a change that removes habitat destruction from the law’s core protections for threatened and endangered wildlife. This rule change will profoundly weaken the ESA, the most important law for protecting and conserving threatened plants and animals in our country.

Signed into law in 1973 — the same year as the International Crane Foundation was established — the ESA is a keystone of conservation success. It is credited with saving 99 percent of the species it protects, like the Endangered Whooping Crane, which was part of the first cohort of species protected by the law. We believe this change will be catastrophic for Whooping Cranes, as well as countless other species, and their habitats.

“Whooping Cranes are living proof that the Endangered Species Act works,” said Dr. Rich Beilfuss, President & CEO of the International Crane Foundation. “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.”

Whooping Cranes in the Eastern Migratory Population take flight in Wisconsin. Fewer than 1,000 Whooping Cranes exist in the world today. (Tom Lynn)

For more than four decades, “harm” under the ESA was understood to include significant habitat modification or degradation — the loss of nesting grounds, feeding areas, and shelter that species depend on to survive. That interpretation was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995. Under the new rule, habitat destruction alone is no longer considered unlawful harm unless a protected animal is directly injured or killed.

“You cannot protect a species while allowing the destruction of the only places it can live,” said Dr. Rich Beilfuss, President and CEO of the International Crane Foundation. “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.”

The Foundation has worked for more than fifty years with landowners, agencies, and communities across the Whooping Crane’s range to protect the habitat this recovery depends on. Because Whooping Cranes migrate the length of the continent, and their survival depends on an unbroken chain of healthy habitat — protecting that chain benefits the hundreds of other species that share it. This is the thinking behind the Foundation’s newly acquired 1,150-acre Wolfberry Whooping Crane Sanctuary on the Texas Gulf Coast, as well as its newest initiative, the Central Flyway Program, which will advance efforts to conserve the wetlands and grasslands along this critical migratory corridor for Whooping Cranes and the broader diversity of wildlife that depends on it.

“We are deeply concerned that this rule strips away a tool that has been essential not only to the Whooping Crane’s recovery, but to the recovery of hundreds of other species across the country,” Beilfuss said. “The International Crane Foundation will continue to stand with the scientific and conservation community in defense of the habitat protections that make species recovery possible, and we urge decision-makers to reconsider a rule that threatens fifty years of hard-won progress.”

In the 1940s, only 21 Whooping Cranes remained in the wild due to unregulated hunting and massive habitat loss. Today, there are more than 690 wild Whooping Cranes, largely due to these vital legal protections and reintroduction efforts, such as those led by the Foundation. However, the species remains endangered and still needs significant help and legal protections.

The International Crane Foundation is dedicated to protecting Whooping Cranes and other species, and the habitat they depend on, as we have done since 1973. The Foundation will continue to advocate against and monitor the implementation of this rule and its potential impacts on Whooping Cranes and their habitats across North America.