Would it harm you if someone burned down your house when you weren’t home? According to a July 2026 revision to the Endangered Species Act, the answer is no. By the logic of the U.S. Department of the Interior, destroying the habitat of an endangered species, so long as no individuals are directly injured or killed, is no longer considered “harm.” Overturning 53 years of precedent, this decision was supposedly made using “Gold Standard Science and common sense.” But, just as in the case of your burning house, the decision’s effects on endangered species are obvious: they will be catastrophic.
Two facts make this clear: First, the most common reason species are on the endangered species list is not direct human-caused mortality. It is habitat loss and degradation. Second, habitat loss was already recognized as the leading cause of species’ declines when the Endangered Species Act was passed with bipartisan support in 1973. In fact, the Act’s preamble states, “The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.” The federal government’s new definition of harm squares with neither science nor common sense.
If this decision is not about science or common sense, what is it about? Money for large corporations.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has said, “For too long, the Endangered Species Act has been weaponized to stop almost any new project in America, driving up costs for families, weakening our competitiveness, and undermining our national security.” But this purported focus on families belies data from the U.S. Department of Interior itself showing that conserving endangered species is big business for lots of people. Bird watching is the second most popular outdoor hobby in the U.S. and generates $279 billion each year, powering an impressive 1.4 million jobs. Ecosystem services from biodiversity—i.e., direct benefits to humans—in the Americas have been valued at an additional $24.3 trillion per year. While endangered species undeniably comprise a small portion of these totals, have you seen the line of cars in Yellowstone when a gray wolf or grizzly bear appears? People pay a lot to be in that traffic jam!
What can be done in the face of yet another fact-free decision? Look no further than Carleton’s Cowling Arboretum for one creative solution. As we note in our conversation about the Arb, Carleton’s prairie restoration efforts have helped bring back species on the Minnesota State Endangered Species List—including the Henslow’s sparrow. While such small-scale actions must be pieced together across larger spatial scales to have a real impact, they do work. Some endangered amphibians need ephemeral pools no bigger than your yard; some endangered birds need short stretches of streams with mature trees where they can find caterpillars; and some endangered mammals need small, brush-free grassy patches so they can see predators. Protecting endangered species without the federal government is one more burden we now must all carry, but the alternative—extinction—will be shared by every generation to come.
Nathan Senner ’04 is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Conservation at UMass Amherst and the Gerard A. Bertrand Chair of Natural History and Field Ornithology at Mass Audubon. For more from Senner, read our conversation between three generations of Carleton ornithologists.