Washington (United States) (AFP) – President Donald Trump's administration will no longer treat the unintentional killing of protected wildlife as unlawful, officials confirmed Thursday, in a shift conservationists say could gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Under the sweeping new directive, deaths resulting from foreseeable risks posed by activities such as commercial fishing or logging will be exempt from the landmark 1973 law.
"What's being put forward by the Trump administration is going to cut the heart out of the Endangered Species Act," Gib Brogan, campaign director for Oceana Fisheries, told AFP.
He said the law had been successful at saving species for five decades by finely balancing human economic needs against conservation.
The September 14 memorandum, posted online by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity and confirmed to AFP by the administration, redefines the longstanding definition of "take" -- a term that relates to pursuing, killing or capturing of a species.
It is now confined to "affirmative conduct intentionally directed against a particular animal or animals."
The move, first reported by the New York Times, explicitly cites a dissent by the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia in a 1995 case on the matter.
"A vessel that inadvertently strikes a whale has not taken it, because the vessel's course was not set against the whale," the document says, quoting the conservative justice.
"Felling a tree is not a take of the bats roosting in it unless the tree is felled for the purpose of killing or capturing them," it continued.
In that case, known as Babbitt v. Sweet Home, an association of landowners and loggers tried to challenge the prevailing definition of "take," arguing a species of woodpecker and an owl had injured them economically by preventing them from conducting their business.
The Supreme Court ultimately ruled against them in a 6-3 decision -- but the high court has since shifted considerably rightward.
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JFC...what is wrong with America? How are they putting up with this? The world is very unimpressed with what we're seeing from the land of the fee and home of the slave these days.
put up with ? they encourage (no not all, so this isn't directed at them but enough)
Trump, McConnell the GOP didn't manically appear one day and usurp the US ziethiest.
Decades ago Regan promised The Iranians if they know the US hosta he's until after the election and if he was elected he would sell then weapons, and he did and financed a war in central America with it. (Iran Contra)
This circus has been on going for decades
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/quarter-century-of-aggressive-war-and-official-lying-since-911-attacks-by-timothy-snyder-2026-06
https://aeon.co/essays/why-western-democracy-is-ailing-and-how-to-fix-it
if you want to know, the system by which we have elected officials to represent us federally has been pretty fucked from the start, with literal provisions and laws in place that actively fight against what the majority of people want.
Red (republican) states have way too much power for how little they provide the country and its people. their populations are miniscule yet they have an equal say in the senate.
Don't even get me started on gerrymandering and voter oppression tactics.
We have a 2 party system that railroads any potential electoral candidate in congress into bending over backwards to appease one of the two deeply corrupt and entrenched organizations that run the show (no im not both sidesing here, republicans are pretty much a nazi party, but the democratic party is full of corporate shills).
Our "Supreme Court" is full of people that are appointed by a president (see: shitty two party system and voter oppression for why we have a problem here). And guess what, that supreme court is stacked with neo-nazi radicalists, literally stripping human rights from people.
This country has been fucked from the start. It was NEVER the land of the free. It was always about finding whatever way the rich could, to enslave or subjugate as many people as possible under their rule.
And I have the absolute pleasure of getting to live next to enough idiots that dedicate their entire lives to a raping, grifting, pedophile that literally shits himself daily, that even a lobotomized chicken would blush.
TL;DR yeah it fucking sucks, and what is written above isn't even one micrometer of the gargantuan iceberg of how fucked this country has been, and continues to be.