Biden administration revives wildlife protections rolled back under Trump

New federal policies will help threatened and endangered species that call Colorado home

By Sophie Stuber, Planet contributor

The Biden administration restored protections for threatened and endangered wildlife that former President Donald Trump rolled back while in office. The new policies took effect on Thursday, March 28.

Federal rules for wildlife protections help local organizations work on conservation projects that span federal and state public lands.

“It’s important to have tools that not only an organization like Sheep Mountain Alliance can use, but other groups, as well as federal land management agencies,” Mason Osgood, executive director of Sheep Mountain Alliance, told the Daily Planet.

Three regulations recommended by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) fisheries service would make it harder to withdraw a species from the endangered list and bring back a ruling that offers better protections for threatened species, classified just below endangered species.

The Biden administration’s rules will also get rid of Trump administration policy that lets regulators consider economic assessments, such as potential revenue losses for oil and gas activities, when determining protections for wildlife.

Several species in the San Juans and southwestern Colorado will benefit from the Biden administration’s new rules.

“Locally here, we have Canada Lynx. And there are a few threatened species of fish down in the Dolores and in the San Miguel. And though not officially threatened, we have a lot of rare endemic plant species down in the West End,” Osgood said.

“Any increase in policy protections for wildlife, especially when it comes to threatened endangered species, is great here, locally. We’re always trying to balance recreation and conservation,” Osogood said.

With climate change posing diverse threats and changing habitats, the new rules will help better protect remaining wildlife.

“As species face new and daunting challenges, including climate change, degraded and fragmented habitat, invasive species, and wildlife disease, the Endangered Species Act is more important than ever to conserve and recover imperiled species now and for generations to come,” Martha Williams, Fish and Wildlife Service director, said in a statement.

Locally, climate change is on the mind of environmental organizations.

“The situation isn’t getting any better. It’s even more important to protect these species, especially here in San Juans,” Osgood said.

The new rules will make it simpler to designate critical habitats for a species’ survival, which could benefit local species like the Gunnison Sage-Grouse that are considered threatened.

“The Gunnison Sage-Grouse’s habitat is probably about a 10th of what it was historically,” Vera Smith, senior federal lands policy analyst at Defenders of Wildlife, told the Planet.

Their habitat is at risk of shrinking more due to energy development and mining, invasive species, livestock grazing land, climate change, and fires.

“It becomes harder and harder for the birds that are in these different patches to connect with one another. And also once a habitat patch gets small enough, then that can be the limiting factor for the bird to survive,” Smith said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will restore regulations that offer overarching protections for animals and plants recently classified as threatened species, which were removed by the Trump administration in 2019.

Most of these blanket protections are mainly used for plants, not animals, which usually benefit from more species-specific rules.

The public comment period for the Biden administration’s new rules saw 468,000 comments from citizens, state representatives, environmental organizations, tribes, and representatives of the oil and gas industries.

Republican lawmakers criticized the Biden administration’s new regulations, claiming that they will interfere with the oil, gas and coal industries.

Around Telluride, this is an argument that often local environmental groups and public officials are often confronted with.

“We’re always fighting against this theory that public lands are for multiple uses and that includes oil and gas and mineral extraction,” Osgood said.

In the West, many BLM lands have multi-use mandates. Better protections, such as the Biden administration’s new rules could help ensure wildlife interests are also considered on public lands.

“It’s sometimes easy to forget that wildlife also uses these public lands. So, increasing policies that protect species in the face of increased interest in uranium and oil and gas is really helpful for local groups like us,” Osgood said.

Previously, the Biden administration removed a Trump decision that restricted which lands and waters could receive federal protections as habitats for endangered or threatened species. The current administration also reinstated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and protections for the northern spotted owl and gray wolf.

Read the article here.