In July 2026, the Trump administration, through the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce, finalized a rule changing how the Endangered Species Act (ESA) defines the word “harm.” For decades, federal regulations interpreted harm to include not only directly killing or injuring a protected animal but also destroying or significantly damaging the habitat it needs to feed, breed, or find shelter. Under the new rule, “harm” is interpreted more narrowly to focus on direct injury or death to individual animals and excluding protections to habitat modification. The administration also finalized changes ending the automatic “blanket” protections that had generally applied to newly listed threatened species. Instead, future threatened species will receive protections only through species-specific rules developed individually for each listing.
In addition, the administration revised the process for designating critical habitat, requiring greater consideration of economic, national security, and other impacts when determining whether areas should receive federal critical habitat designation, and allowing certain areas to be excluded, even if it will cause harm to wildlife. Conservation organizations and many wildlife scientists argue that because habitat loss is one of the leading causes of species decline, limiting protections for habitats could have severe consequences for all kinds of wildlife. They also state that species-specific protections could take additional time to implement, potentially leaving some newly listed threatened species with fewer protections during that process. The rule does not remove federal protections for endangered or threatened species themselves, but it changes how several parts of the law are interpreted and enforced. Its long-term effects on wildlife conservation could be significant, and the rule is currently being challenged in federal court.