Plan to loosen federal habitat protection seen as threat to iconic Maine wildlife

Yahoo

15-05-2025

May 15—The Trump administration wants to weaken federal habitat protections for imperiled plants and animals, and advocates in Maine say the changes could threaten some of the same species the state has been working to protect.
Proposed federal changes would narrow the scope of the country's landmark Endangered Species Act, making it easier to obtain federal development permits in areas used by endangered wildlife for nesting, breeding and foraging.
The rule changes have raised alarms nationwide as a potential threat to such high-profile wildlife as bald eagles, gray wolves and Florida manatees. Environmental groups have promised to fight the changes in court if they are implemented. On Monday, a group of Democratic U.S. senators asked the Trump administration to explain how it analyzed the proposed rule and whether industry had a hand in drafting it.
Administration officials did not immediately respond to that request but have said that habitat protections for threatened species are being implemented too broadly. Critics of the regulation have long argued that the provisions for habitat protection are overly burdensome on industry.
Local environmental groups say the proposed changes could hurt some Maine species, such as Atlantic salmon or Furbish's lousewort, which are protected under the federal law but not under Maine's endangered species law.
And, they say, the changes could also endanger species such as the piping plover that enjoy strong protections under Maine law but could be vulnerable in other parts of their migratory range.
"The trouble with Maine-only protections is that they only apply in Maine," said Sally Stockwell, director of conservation at Maine Audubon. "Many of our federally threatened and endangered species don't spend their entire lives in Maine."
Piping plovers and roseate terns are protected by state and federal habitat protections but spend at least part of their year out of Maine, Stockwell said. If federal habitat protections are removed, these birds may be at risk in other parts of their range.
Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the intention to repeal a longstanding definition of what it means to harm imperiled plants and animals. It would still be illegal to kill one, but not to modify its habitat.
In the past, both agencies have identified habitat loss as the biggest reason that most species face extinction.
Now administration officials say the current definition of harm is too broad and that it should be narrowed to protect endangered wildlife from intentional killing, like being shot, trapped or bulldozed.
The proposed federal definition of harm would still prohibit killing a piping plover, but it would not, for example, prevent using a bulldozer to destroy the dunes and dune grass where they nest or prevent dogs from chasing them, even though either action can prevent successful nesting.
The proposed change could also make it harder for Maine to get the federal money it needs to fund habitat protection efforts and harder to use the courts to stop harmful development projects, said Anya Fletcher of Natural Resources Council of Maine.
Maine's state law would still provide some safeguards. But advocates say federal protections are a big help, especially since the Maine game wardens are spread so thin they often can't enforce state law and tend to rely on federal enforcement for really egregious offenses.
The proposed loss of federal habitat protections would affect more than Maine's birds, Stockwell said.
A dam built across a Maine river that Atlantic salmon use for migration to upstream breeding areas will undoubtedly hurt the species' long-term odds of population recovery, but it doesn't necessarily kill an individual fish, Stockwell said. Atlantic salmon is a federally listed species that isn't on Maine's state list.
Unregulated logging could degrade or reduce the habitat of the Canada lynx, Stockwell said. The lynx is another federally listed species that isn't covered by Maine's state law because its population is growing here, estimated to be between 750 to 1,000, and actually expanding into New Hampshire.
State wildlife officials said they were reviewing the federal proposal, which was introduced last month in the week before Earth Day. But they say most federally protected species that can be found in Maine are also protected by the state's own threatened and endangered species law.
Endangered species also may be protected by other federal laws. The North Atlantic right whale, for example, is protected under both the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
"There are laws in place here that would still require consideration of habitat impacts of endangered and threatened species," said Nathan Webb, wildlife division director at Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. "Those wouldn't change by virtue of a change or a reintepretation of federal law."
The state regularly updates its state law, adding six new species to the protected list in 2023. But it can't add a species just because it's struggling elsewhere, Webb said. Nationally, the Dreamy Duskywing population is tanking, falling by 86% over the last 20 years, but the butterfly is still common here, so it remains unlisted in Maine.
Conservation Law Foundation attorney Erica Fuller warns the Trump administration also is challenging the right of states to pass their own climate laws, and said there is no reason to believe federal regulators will leave state habitat protections in place if they are stripped from the federal law.
Unlike other states, Maine's law specifically allows for habitat protection, although it is not required in the case of every protected species. The state has only designated essential habitats for a few state-listed species under threat from habitat loss. There's no need to protect the habitat of a species that is primarily at risk from a disease or invasive species, Webb said.
Only six federally listed wildlife species that spend time in Maine territory are not protected under state law: Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sturgeon, blue whale, Canada lynx, green sea turtle and red knot. A proposal to require cross-listing of those species failed in 2021 after opponents said it would force Maine to ignore local science and surrender power to Washington.
While these species may be threatened elsewhere, state officials consider the in-state populations big enough and the threats to their survival small enough to keep them off the state list, even though many enjoy state support in other ways, Webb said.
For example, Maine has protection plans for both Canada lynx and Atlantic salmon even though they are not listed as endangered, Webb noted.
While environmentalists such as Fuller and Stockwell say wildlife in states like Maine and Massachusetts is better protected than wildlife in other states, like Texas or Florida, they worry state laws and state funds aren't enough to help at-risk wildlife survive other threats, like climate, much less thrive.
"If federal protection is lifted for those species, they may not have backstops in Maine," Stockwell said.
That could hurt humans, not just the endangered species, she said. For example, current federal laws require culvert replacements in Atlantic salmon habitat that meet federal standards. The larger culverts help migratory fish, but they also reduce storm-related flooding.
The state endangered species act isn't the only state law that affords habitat protection, Webb said. The state's natural resources protection and site development laws would provide some habitat protection to those federally listed species that are not also listed in Maine.
Narrowing the scope of the federal law would embolden developers to try to eliminate habitat protection from Maine's state law, advocates say. Environmental groups fend off efforts to roll back Maine's wildlife protections in most legislative sessions, including this one, according to Fletcher.
"We're always playing defense, even in Maine, when we'd really like to be doing more to protect wildlife," Fletcher said. "The federal law and regulation act as a really important backstop. Without it, I think we'd see even more attempts to weaken the state law."
The state endangered species law does not apply to plants, while the federal law does.
It was a federally listed plant, Furbish's lousewort, that stopped the construction of the Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a 30-story hydroelectric dam planned near the confluence of the Allagash and St. John Rivers, said Noah Charney, an assistant professor of conservation biology University of Maine.
Furbish's lousewort is a yellow-flowering herb that only grows along the damp, shady riverbank of the St. John River. Named after a Brunswick botanist, the lousewort was believed extinct until rediscovered by a University of Maine researcher in 1976. It was federally listed two years later.
In 2023, federal wildlife officials upgraded Furbish's lousewort from threatened to endangered.
The dam would have flooded 88,000 acres of forest and streams, including habitat for the lousewort and other species had it been built, but support from Maine's congressional delegation waned, and Congress pulled funding in 1981.
It was a huge environmental win for Maine and proof the Endangered Species Act, at that time only eight years old, could topple what would have been New England's largest public works project, Charney said. And do it in the name of a threatened plant with a truly unfortunate name.
"Maybe the next Dickey-Lincoln Dam gets built," Charney said. "And the next Furbish's lousewort is lost."
The public has until May 19 to weigh in on the proposed regulation change before it is finalized. More than 60,000 comments have been posted to the Fish and Wildlife Service's public docket.
Environmental groups have vowed to sue if the regulatory change is enacted. They are also opposing Trump's so-called "God squad" that has the power to override Endangered Species Act protections, a proposal to make it easier to delist a species and reductions in federal wildlife enforcement personnel.
"It's an all-out assault on wildlife," Fuller said. "If we can't protect these species from harm, then we will watch them go extinct so the Trump administration can once again cater to the interests of the mining, logging and energy industries."
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