Electronic Submission – No Hard Copy to Follow
Submitted via – https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/17/2025-06746/rescinding-the-definition-of-harm-under-the-endangered-species-act
May 19, 2025
Department of the Interior
Fish and Wildlife Service
and
Department of Commerce
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Subject: Document FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0034-0001, Rescinding the Definition of Harm under the Endangered Species Act
Dear Secretary Burgum and Secretary Lutnick:
I am writing on behalf of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks (Coalition), which represents over 4,100 current, former, and retired employees and volunteers of the National Park Service (NPS). Collectively, our membership represents over 50,000 years of national park management and stewardship experience. Our members include former National Park Service directors, deputy directors, regional directors, and park superintendents, as well as a variety of program specialists and field staff. Recognized as the Voices of Experience, the Coalition educates, speaks, and acts for the preservation and protection of the National Park System and the mission-related programs of the National Park Service.
We write today to express our displeasure and to strongly state that we oppose the proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (collectively, “the Services”) to rescind the long-standing regulatory interpretation of the term “harm” in the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA) definition of prohibited take (the “Proposed Rule”).
The ESA is a highly successful law that has led to the recovery and persistence of hundreds of species and the restoration of thousands of acres of habitats-homes to terrestrial and aquatic species within the United States and to migrating species globally. We believe that threatened and endangered species and the critical habitats are key to the preservation and restoration of biodiversity in this country and that our nation’s national parks play a key role in these efforts.
The Coalition offers the following comments for analysis and consideration:
- The Endangered Species Act (ESA), passed by Congress in 1973, designated the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior with the authority to administer the ESA and the two agencies within share the responsibility for implementing the law: Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries). In the proposed rule, the Secretary of Commerce, NOAA Fisheries and the Secretary of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are proposing to rescind the long-standing definition of “harm” to species under the federal ESA. If adopted, this proposal will impact species within and on the boundaries of national parks and likely could impact visitation and local economies.
- Habitat destruction is the biggest cause of extinction and the ESA definition of harm has been pivotal to protecting and recovering endangered species. In essence, the proposed rule change states that habitat modification should not be considered harm. The justification claims so because it is not the same as the intentional targeting of a species, called “take.” The definition of “take” has consistently included actions that harm species, and this has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
- The protection of habitat, aquatic and terrestrial, is critical to the survival of threatened and endangered plants and animals, as well as keeping common species common. The proposal will, without doubt, lead to immeasurable habitat destruction, and consequently, biodiversity loss.
- The loss of species that the American public and their tax dollars have fought hard to preserve, protect, and conserve for decades will result in more loss of our nation’s biodiversity, already at the brink. As the biodiversity crisis continues to increase at an alarming rate, habitat destruction drives species toward extinction more than any other single factor. Compounded with climate change, invasive species, and fragmentation, this proposal threatens to undermine the very goal embodied in the ESA.
- Under the ESA, “take” means to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, collect, or attempt to engage in any such conduct.” Existing regulations further define “harm” as “an act that actually kills or injures fish or wildlife … [including] significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering.” This definition and subsequent interpretation have ensured the recovery and conservation of a myriad of species and habitats, and has prevented others from becoming threatened or endangered. In our national parks and beyond park boundaries, species have been restored and continue to recover under the watchful eye of the ESA.
- The proposal, if adopted, would rescind this definition, and, not only set back decades of recovery work and habitat restoration, but push the destruction of habitat and species into an accelerated process of extinction.
- National Parks, Refuges, and other protected public and private lands and waters, provide critical habitat for many endangered and threatened species. And wildlife knows no boundaries. For instance, habitat destroyed outside of a national park boundary can impact wildlife resources within the park such as grizzly bears, wolves, spotted owl, murrelets, California condors, wolverines, salmon, and many, many, more.
- Species such as black-footed ferrets have made a comeback under the ESA. Other species such as honeycreepers in and around Haleakala National Park are relying on the ESA to not become extinct. At one park along, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, there are 35 threatened and endangered species. The Mission blue butterfly and western snowy plover are imperiled and will not be able to thrive and fully recover without the provisions outlined in the ESA. We would no longer have the bald eagle or Trumpeter swans without the full protections of the ESA.
- In addition, protections of habitat under the ESA ensure that wildlife that migrate or have large home ranges such as grizzly bear, wolves and salmon have the ability to exchange genetic material in order to sustain healthy populations. Many wildlife corridors contain critical habitat crucial to the recovery and sustaining of these species.
- This proposal as defined would begin the process for industries to log, pollute, mine, bulldoze, dam, fragment, and blatantly destroy habitat that is key to the survival of endangered species. In addition, it will lead to the acceleration of many more species and their habitats becoming endangered and even extinct.
The Coalition strongly urges the Services and the Administration to fully analyze all comments presented in the Federal Register in an open and transparent manner and to come to the obvious conclusion of rescinding this proposal. Time, energy, and funding should be focused on further protecting threatened and endangered species for our national natural heritage, for this, and future generations to come.
Sincerely,
Philip A. Francis, Chair
Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks
Mail: 2 Massachusetts Ave NE, Unit 77436, Washington, DC 20013
Web: www.protectnps.org