I am writing with deep concern.  The U.S. Department of Interior’s Fish & Wildlife Service is quietly gutting a key aspect of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Brian Nesvick, the Director of Fish & Wildlife Service, issued an internal memo on September 14, 2026 that reinterprets the ESA's term "take" to mean only the intentional  taking of animals.  The memo states, for example, that  “Felling a tree is not a take of the bats roosting in it unless the tree is felled for the purpose of killing or capturing them.”  This new definition will allow accidental or unintentional harm to endangered species without consequence, and vastly diminish the protective scope of the ESA.

The ESA, the cornerstone of U.S. conservation efforts, is credited with saving 99% of the listed species from extinction.  Among them are the California condor, the gray wolf, the American crocodile, the Mexican long-nosed bat, the peregrine falcon, the masked bobwhite (quail), and the southern river otter.  The ESA succeeded because it bars the "take" of species in a comprehensive manner.  It prohibits not only the direct wounding or killing of protected species, but the destruction of habitat that impairs species’ ability to eat, shelter, or breed.  The all-encompassing interpretation of "take" is crucial because human activities often unintentionally, but significantly, impact wildlife populations and their habitats. 

The consequences of the reinterpretation will be catastrophic.  Harvard law professor Andrew Mergen, who spent two decades at the Justice Department supervising ESA appeals, calls it "an assault” on the ESA. Now “it doesn’t matter if you killed an endangered species if you didn’t mean to.”  The revision invites willful ignorance; a failure to consider likely outcomes becomes a defense to liability.  No longer will the ESA hold accountable the industries and individuals who knew or should have known their acts would harm endangered animals.  

Over twenty states and the District of Columbia have already sued to block this evisceration of the ESA.  Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition for the Department of the Interior to retract Fish & Wildlife’s reinterpretation of the ESA.   The unintentional "take" of endangered species should not be excused.