How Trump’s gutting of the Endangered Species Act could hurt three iconic Georgia species

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WABE and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

The Supreme Court once billed the Endangered Species Act “the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species ever enacted by any nation.” Federal protections have been key to saving nearly 300 U.S. species — including the bald eagle, American alligator, and grizzly bear — from extinction. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is primarily responsible for implementing the law, evaluates species and lists them as “endangered” or “threatened.” When a federal project or private development has the potential to harm a listed species or its habitat, project developers are required to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service or obtain a permit prior to construction.

For the last several decades, the interpretation of two words in particular — “take” and “harm” —  have formed the backbone of the Nixon-era act. The law’s prohibition of “taking” an animal criminalized any attempts to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” at-risk species. And its provision on “harm” ensured that degrading the habitat of a listed species could be penalized. These definitions have been key to the success of the law. 

But that all changed last month when the Trump administration determined that razing the places where endangered or threatened species breed, feed, and shelter would no longer be subject to federal penalties. In a separate internal memo, the administration also reinterpreted the definition of “take,” limiting it to instances of intentional killing of an endangered species. The administration contends the changes will correct past overreach.

“For years, federal agencies abused the ESA to obstruct lawful land use and burden American families and businesses,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement to the Associate Press. 

Nearly two dozen attorneys general have sued over some of these changes.

“These rule changes, when you zoom out, are an assault on threatened and endangered species unlike we’ve ever seen before,” said Elizabeth Forsyth, a senior attorney in the biodiversity defense program with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization. “It’s an effort to eliminate habitat protections, eliminate automatic protections for threatened species, and give industry power.”

Climate change is making matters worse, as species struggle to adapt to warming temperatures and changing ecosystems. 

Below, we look at how three iconic Georgia species might fare as the regulatory framework that has kept them afloat is weakened. 

North Atlantic right whale

North Atlantic right whales got their name perversely. Because they stick close to shore and to the surface, and float when killed, they were the “right whale” to hunt. So right that humans hunted them nearly to extinction before the practice was banned in the 1930s.

That’s not why right whales are dying today.

“Nobody goes out and says, I’m gonna hit a right whale with my ship,” said Delcianna Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School. 

But it happens anyway.

Though it’s not always possible to determine the cause of death for a whale, research shows that the leading cause is human activity: Ships strike the whales, and fishing gear tangles them up, leading to injury and death. It happens often enough that North Atlantic right whales have been experiencing what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls an unusual mortality event since 2017, in which 43 have died, and 133 have been spotted injured or in poor health. About 380 whales remain, only 70 of which are breeding females.

More about efforts to track and protect right whales off Georgia’s coast.

Well before the latest changes to the Endangered Species Act, the Trump administration had already begun rolling back protections for right whales. In March, NOAA announced plans to rescind ocean speed restrictions designed to reduce the risk of vessel strikes. The agency later declined to expand the whales’ designated critical habitat to include their migratory route. The Biden Administration had proposed expanding the speed restrictions after years of pressure from advocates, but withdrew the plan shortly before Trump took office the second time.

The administration will likely use its new definition of “take” to bolster those actions, Winders said. “Now they can point to this and say, ‘Look, we can’t have speed limits under the law because it only applies to intentional direct activities.’”

A memo describing the change, signed by Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik, directly referenced whales. “A vessel that inadvertently strikes a whale has not taken it, because the vessel’s course was not set against the whale,” it said.

Right whales are “particularly vulnerable” to the changes, Winders said, both because of their critically low population figures and because their primary causes of death are incidental takes. 

“Right whales don’t have two years or four years or six years” to wait for a new president or Congress to restore their protections, Winders said. “This is going to impact them immediately.”

Eastern hellbender

Wildlife advocates with the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations have been trying to get the eastern hellbender listed as endangered for more than a decade. In 2024, they came close. After Hurricane Helene felled trees and kicked up sediment, disturbing the sensitive salamander’s habitat, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finally proposed the hellbender for protection, with a decision expected at the end of 2025. But the decision never came. In fact, not a single endangered species has been listed since Trump took office. 

The eastern hellbender has enjoyed state protection in places like New York and North Carolina, and isolated populations in Missouri are federally protected. It’s considered “threatened” by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. However, unlike species that have been federally designated as “endangered” or “threatened,” most populations of hellbenders have had no federal protection, even as populations have dwindled dramatically. The salamander is a homebody — once it finds a place it likes to live, it often stays there its entire life. An ancient remnant of the Ice Age, it has lived in the same streams and rivers for just about 160 million years and has been called a living fossil.

See more about hellbenders in Georgia

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, its roughly 600 known historical populations have endured narrowing margins over the past few decades. More than 40% of those populations have vanished, and another 36% are in active decline. The hellbender breathes through its skin, meaning water pollution and sedimentation can cause disease and death. It thrives best in the cold, clear streams of the higher mountains in the Appalachian region, and shade cover is vital.  

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in February, demanding the Fish and Wildlife Service complete its decisionmaking process. Since then, though, there’s been no movement, with the next regulatory step listed as “to be determined,” along with hundreds of other endangered species whose protections have been similarly delayed.

According to Michael Gangloff, who studies freshwater life at Appalachian State University, human development is the biggest threat to hellbenders. But, he said, they’re also fighters. 

“These things are tough, and the fact that they’re still here, attests to their toughness,” he said. “They’re an ancient, ancient group of salamanders.”

Red-cockaded woodpecker

The Southeastern United States used to be a red-cockaded woodpecker’s paradise, with longleaf pine forest stretching across much of the region. Unlike many other woodpeckers that hollow out dead trees to nest, these black-and-white-spotted birds live exclusively in the trunks of living pine trees. They spend months or years hollowing out a suitable cavity, and they prefer to do it in mature trees. 

But finding suitable trees has become much harder than it was a century ago. Much of the South’s longleaf pine forest was clear-cut for timber and replaced by faster-growing species of pine. Management practices vary, but commercial timber operations often cut and replant pines before the trees are mature enough for a red-cockaded woodpecker’s liking, according to Joe Burnham, a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. 

“They have pretty specific habitat requirements,” Burnham said. “There are a whole suite of species, both plant and animal, that evolved with this ecosystem over time that really have a hard time surviving elsewhere.”

Development is booming in Georgia, with much of the state’s forested land at risk of conversion to housing or more profitable forms of agriculture. The Trump administration’s policy changes, particularly its new definition of “harm,” could put red-cockaded woodpeckers at greater risk by removing protections for their habitat. As a result, more forests could become vulnerable to conversion, further shrinking the mature pine forests the birds rely on. 

More about red-cockaded woodpecker conservation in Georgia

Still, red-cockaded woodpeckers have made substantial strides since their 1973 Endangered Species Act listing, thanks in large part to efforts to restore longleaf pine habitat and transplant birds to suitable forests so they can reestablish themselves. In 2024, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service downlisted them from endangered to threatened. Despite the change, state- and region-level restoration efforts continue, Burnham said, because the woodpeckers need them — as do the many other endangered and threatened species that rely on the same habitat, including gopher tortoises and indigo snakes.

“We’re managing these stands for a multitude of species,” he said. “We’ve invested a lot of conservation effort into these species.”

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Courtesy of Georgia Recorder