{"id":539488,"date":"2026-07-23T00:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539488\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T00:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T00:32:10","slug":"manatees-among-species-at-risk-as-trump-strips-esa-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/539488\/","title":{"rendered":"Manatees among species at risk as Trump strips ESA protections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida\u2019s manatees could be among the species left more vulnerable by the Trump administration\u2019s rollback of Endangered Species Act protections, conservationists warn, as the Center for Biological Diversity moves to challenge the changes in federal court.<\/p>\n

The Center has filed a motion challenging the administration\u2019s decision to scrap the Endangered Species Act\u2019s (ESA) \u201cblanket rule,\u201d which automatically protected plants and animals listed as threatened, unless officials developed a rule specific to that species.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rule\u2019s removal is one of two related changes announced Friday, both concerning Section 4 of the Act, which governs how federal agencies decide which species to list and whether they\u2019re classified as \u2018threatened\u2019 or \u2018endangered\u2019.\u00a0\u2018Endangered\u2019 is the more severe designation of the two and one reserved for species facing more imminent extinction.<\/p>\n

The blanket rule protected threatened species from \u201ctake\u201d \u2013 legally defined as any attempt \u201cto harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect.\u201d That prohibition was \u201cthe meat of the ESA,\u201d according to Elizabeth Neville, director of environmental law and policy for Save the Manatee Club, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Longwood, Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a common-sense mechanism in efficiency for the agency: that, if a species is threatened with extinction, the baseline prohibition should be prohibition against take,\u201d Neville told Central Florida Public Media. \u201cThose are the common-sense protections to prevent an already imperiled species from declining further.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second change will require federal agencies to weigh economic and national security interests when designating critical habitat for a protected species, allowing areas to be excluded from that designation \u201cif that exclusion will not cause the extinction of the species,\u201d according to the Interior Department, as reported by Central Florida Public Media.<\/p>\n

Neville considers all of the recently announced changes concerning, but has singled out the critical habitat revision as particularly troubling, if not \u201cflagrantly illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes critical habitat really vulnerable to economic considerations, when the statute requires the best available science,\u201d Neville said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to put a weight on the scale in favour of economic interests over conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the revised rule, if the economic costs of designating critical habitat in a given area are found to outweigh the conservation benefits, agencies will be required to exclude that area from the designation. For manatees, Neville said, that raises the risk of losing the warm-water refuges and forage habitat the species depends on to survive \u2013 a loss she warned could carry a steep long-term cost, both ecological and economic.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeystone species like manatees provide incredible ecosystem services,\u201d Neville said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s really amazing the millions and millions of tourism dollars that manatees alone bring into the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

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