Credit: Cacophny
Help save the Endangered Species Act
Federal agencies plan to gut the nation’s most effective wildlife protection law
December 2, 2025
Drew Gamils
Senior Attorney
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service plan to weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the keystone federal law that protects vulnerable fish, wildlife, and plants. These changes would make it much harder to protect at-risk species:
- The first proposal would overhaul how species are listed and how critical habitat is designated, allowing economic considerations to influence decisions and sharply limiting protections for species threatened by climate change or needing habitat that is not currently occupied.
- A second proposal would weaken the consultation process between different agencies, making it easier for federal actions to harm at-risk species and their habitats.
- A third rule would eliminate automatic protections for newly listed threatened species, forcing the agency to craft individual rules for every species — delaying and reducing safeguards.
- Finally, the agencies propose expanding when critical habitat can be excluded for economic or political reasons, giving industry far greater power to block habitat protections even when scientists warn they are essential for a species’ survival.
You can make a difference: Tell the agencies to withdraw these harmful proposals and preserve the ESA’s science-based, precautionary protections that have been essential to preventing species extinction for more than 50 years.
Copy the sample text below and submit it through this link. To increase the impact of your comment, please add a few sentences describing why protecting endangered and threatened species matters to you. Please note: This sample comment is tailored to the proposed rulemaking concerning critical habitat. However, the public is encouraged to submit comments on all four ESA rulemakings.
The proposed Endangered Species Act (ESA) rulemakings will dramatically weaken protections for the nation’s most vulnerable species. These changes undermine the ESA’s core requirement that the designation of critical habitat be based on best available science. Congress enacted the ESA to provide a comprehensive, science-based framework for protecting imperiled species and the ecosystems they depend on. It is unacceptable to prioritize economic interests over science when extinction is on the line. Habitat loss is the leading driver of species declines worldwide. Habitat protection must be strengthened and expanded, not restricted! The ESA’s greatest successes — the recovery or down-listing of species like the bald eagle, peregrine falcon, and many others — have come through strong habitat protection, restoration, and conservation, not merely preventing direct killing. As habitat loss accelerates in the U.S. and globally, weakening habitat protections will push more species toward extinction. I urge the agencies to withdraw these changes and retain the science-based regulations that have helped prevent extinctions for more than 50 years.
These rulemakings come on top of an earlier proposal seeking to eliminate the definition of “harm” under the ESA, abandoning a critical tool for preventing devastating declines to species that come when habitats are damaged beyond repair.
Riverkeeper has long stood with the ESA — not only to protect individual species, but to safeguard the ecosystems they depend on. In recent years, we’ve filed lawsuits aimed at safeguarding vulnerable species and played a central role in negotiating key changes to projects that threaten our region’s iconic animals.
The ESA is our nation’s most effective wildlife protection law. It has prevented 99 percent of listed species from going extinct. These rollbacks would make it harder to protect habitat, safeguard species threatened by climate change, and ensure federal agencies and corporations do not push species closer to the brink. Raise your voice today and stand up for wildlife in New York and across the country.
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